I agree that the xenophobic anti-chinese parts of the conversation are nonsensical & absurd and only get brought up as another bulletpoint to rail against the EGS when Tencent has it's fingers in a ton of pies without anyone caring about it.
But there are still valid reasons to have doubts about a platform that wants to set itself apart as handcurated & where the games get great visibility compared to other platforms. The amount of games that get to be on the store will be limited. Especially when they're not actively developing tools to personalize who gets to see which games, instead relying on an one-size-fits-all approach by handcurating the store for millions of different customers. Which games will get the most visibility? The games & studios that already have a wide audience. Which games will be rejected first to retain visibility for the bigger fish? The smaller ones. Assault Android Cactus won't be the last well regarded game that falls by the wayside. Even some of the smaller games that are on the service right now already require more than 10+ scrolls to be visible (Gorogoa & Donut Country) while the big games are front & center. I get it, naturally you want to throw the big games in front of the eyeballs of the masses, but it's a far cry from Steam being able to figure out what kind of games i spend time in and recommending me smaller games like Reprisal Universe, Memoria, Risk of Rain 2 & Technobabylon through their queues and letting me keep track of these smaller games through my wishlist.
And that more curated ideal wouldn't be a huge issue if some of the ideas in the Epic store wouldn't potentially have industry-wide effects. A store that shines it's spotlight on the big studios is just as legit as a store that shines it's spotlight on older games (GoG). But suddenly we have this new mandatory creator cut to deal with. As an indiedev, before you used to be able to send some codes out to variety streamers and get some exposure that way. There's no direct financial tie between the game & the streamer so streamers get to purely choose the games based on their game preference & the quality of the game. In the future, these creators are able to make money on these games by using their EGS referral links. The existance of a direct financial tie means that the more lucrative games have a huge advantage. Suddenly it's not about highlighting games based on quality & preference. Just as the bigger streamers have exposed games like Rise of Kings & Conan Exiles on twitch during it's marketing period, but now on a greater scale where every creator out there is able to be part of these marketing moments for the games that offer the most lucrative deal in a constant manner. The streamingworld is so cutthroat, you can't blame them for doing what makes the most financial sense. People have to make a living. But this financial tie to gamesales will result in a situation where the cream has a harder time to rise to the top. Especially from smaller and up&coming studio's.
For devs, suddenly your pricing & marketing has to change to be an attractive value proposition to receive coverage. Spending your hours on a game with a paltry 5% revshare or a linear storybased game that only 5 viewers might buy, won't be an enticing product to spend time on. Creators would much rather lead their audience to buy the latest multiplayer or viral challenge game instead. The kind of games that people actually want to buy afterwards to play. Let's face it, games like Contradiction & Monkey Island are great games to watch, but a very small percentage would actually go out to buy these games through a referral link after watching a creator play through these linear games all the way. Certain games & studio's will get the short end of the stick, and the games that do potentially make financial sense to receive exposure, have to offer a creator cut that is high enough to steer creators away from the competition. Suddenly you're not just enjoying epic's lower cut,but an additional paywall is raised on the exposure side of things for everyone. Less exposure for up & coming studio's through store inclusion and through creators will make it a harder time to make your small game a success. That's what worries me. The 'EGS store = source of good because they have a lower cut' story feels shortsighted to me. To me, Epic says: We want to sell you the most popular games from the most popular studios, give streamers an incentive to market the games on our store, and want devs to share their revenue with these streamers. And if some games end up to be more lucrative to market than others, you could always raise the creator cut & battle for the eyeballs right? That's just the new market reality that you'll have to deal with.
They seem to be aware that this streamer cut could be a source of annoyance, given that they're spending the fortnite bucks temporarily to pay out the first 5% revshare out of their own pockets for the next 24 months. That won't be the case once the store is settled as a strong platform.
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