Epic Games Store Ready to Overthrow Steam? Hear Our Opinion
Epic Game has indeed become a byword among the people lately PC Master Race, not because of the famous Fortnite Game but because they recently released their new product which is Epic Game Store. Epic Game Store itself is a digital distribution platform like Steam, GOG, or Origins. In this article, we want to describe what factors make the Epic Game Store Decent but Needs to be Improved.
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Disclaimer: This article not only discusses the greatness of the Epic Game Store, we also have input for them so read on until the end~.
1. Giving More Percentage to Developers
Providing the promise of higher revenue is certainly a breath of fresh air for developers, especially those who are trying to stand on their own feet. The Epic Games Store is like a savior, promising a fairly large profit sharing, namely 88% of sales for developers and 12% for operations Epic Games Store. Looks very friendly of course in the eyes of the developers, where on the other hand Steam only gives shares 70% revenue for developers and cutting 30% for Steam’s own operations and revenue.
This small revenue has not yet been added if the developer uses Unreal Engine 4, then they must pay a fee 5% as Royalty. Epic Games as owner Epic Game Store on the other hand waiving the cost of the Royalty fee until 2 years forward.
Either this is a clearly demonstrated competitive move against Steam (The graphics they released clearly shot Steam as a competitor) or did it be Epic Games’ ethics of caring for indie developers serious. In fact, many Indie developers flock to exclusive their games on PC on the Epic Games portal and not on Steam.
2. Payment System is More Friendly
friendly ??? Yup…even though Epic Game Store has just opened, but is reluctant to cooperate with local payments in Indonesia to facilitate consumer payments. Epic Games Store itself provides Payment methods starting from direct payment at Alfamart, Docu Wallet, even up to XL credit. Ah! Steam Wallet can also be purchased by Alfamart and also via Pulsaah…. yup bro but not directly, aka the purchase is through 3rd party bro~.
So What’s the Difference?
A clear difference can be seen in PRICE !. Direct purchases without a 3rd party make the Epic Game Store rupiah price cheaper per dollar. For more details see the image below.
There’s a difference 20 thousand Rupiah (depending on the price, there are only 9 thousand different), and here you don’t need to bother confirming to a third party. Go directly to Alfamart and pay according to the price listed.
3. Exclusive Games Not Available in Other Stores
Digital Distribution market competition can certainly be started and seen from many aspects. There is competition from in terms of price, completeness of a game, feature, discount, and of course EXCLUSIVENESS!. Yes, exclusivity is a weapon for every game sales platform, PS4 with exclusive games like God of War and Spiderman, Fallout 76 owned by Bethesda on PC, Star Wars Battle Front in Origin, and many more games that force you to transact on the related Platform.
This certainly encourages Epic Games to work with certain developers to only release their games individually Exclusive on Epic Games Store. Fresh titles like Hades, Ashen, Satisfactory and several other titles have confidently chosen the Epic Games Store as their release Platform. Those of us who are interested and want to play the game are of course required to buy the game at the Epic Games Store, which is a distinct advantage for the Epic Games Store.
4. Promises Free Games Regularly
Yup, like the Humble Bundle, the Epic Games Store seems to be trying hard to attract consumers to look at their market. By promising free games every 2 weeks!. Even if Steam is only free at certain moments and the decision is left to the game owner without any regular commitments. PS4 which often provides free games even though it requires certain memberships. Its Lit Boi!
5. Good Prospects for Indie Studios
Looking at the promises given by the Epic Games Store to Indie developers, it seems that Epic Games is trying to be fully committed. Not only giving big gratuity and also waived the Unreal Engine standard license fee of 5%, but the Epic Games Store will also try to introduce its games to players Fortnite who already played Fortnite through Epic Games.
This is certainly news to be good news for developers, given that Fortnite is becoming a Battle Royale phenomenon which minfect new world playerst. Starting from artists, political figures, youtubers, almost many people play or at least endorse this game. This large number of player bases will be linked or at least introduced to indie games in the hope of increasing sales of these games. In addition, the Epic Games Store is also trying to connect content creators with game developers.
The Bad…?
The Problem of Unfriendly Regional Pricing!
Yup, of course nothing is perfect in the world, each party has its advantages and disadvantages. But therein lies the beauty of competition, each will try to be better than the other. Here the Epic Game Store has shortcomings that you should pay attention to and of course need Epic Game correction.
What is Region Pricing?
The first is their Region Pricing policy which is still relatively bad for several regions outside the USA and Europe. For those of you who don’t know what Region Pricing is, simple Region Pricing is price adjustment for each region. Usually this adjustment is seen from GDP per capita and also other elements like purchasing power and behavior of each country. This is what causes the price of AAA games to drop Steam region Indonesia will be much cheaper than in America which set a price of 60$.
Region pricing is quite common in many digital distribution platforms, for example Steam, PS4, Microsoft. Besides being able to suppress piracy in developing countries, Region pricing is considered to be able to stimulate sales from game developers themselves.
“Steam advises setting local pricing for some markets with lower GDP per capita?—?mostly BRIC and developing countries. Please, follow its advice, because it matters a lot.” Said Sergey Galyonkin as the creator of Steam Spy “Effectively you can double your sales and increase your revenue by up to 50% if you cater to the most important markets outside US and Europe.”
Then how about Epic Game Store?
For the Epic Game Store, which in fact sells games on the PC platform, the price of their games has not yet humanized the Indonesian people.
It is very obvious that the price on Steam is very inversely proportional to the Epic Game Store, the difference is almost 3 times!. On the one hand, Epic Game Store only converts Hello Neighbors dollar prices without applying Region Pricing. In fact, in About, owned by the Epic Game Store, they stated their support for Region Pricing. My personal analysis is that it is not easy to implement Region Pricing in each country, so the Epic Game Store needs time to list all the needs and demands of each country.
This is a big problem that will really disturb consumers in Indonesia, of course, with a series of exclusive game line-ups and also the ease of payment, of course it will be very unfortunate if they don’t implement Region Pricing.
Even though they openly support Region Pricing? but it seems that they themselves are not ready!
So what do we have to do?
Wait and see guys…. The problem of Region Pricing is indeed a big obstacle for us in Indonesia, but a digital distribution of STEAM itself takes a long time. 15 years since Steam was founded only in the last few years have they made it easier to buy games for Indonesia and its Pricing Region. Maybe here Epic Game Store still focused on competing in the USA and Europe regional levels first, but if this shows progress, of course we will receive the effects gradually.
If you want to have a lot of money and don’t really care about Region Pricing and want to support indie devs, the Epic Game Store is the answer considering their bigger profit share. As a target you can bill to Epic Games in the future, looks like they are planning to release their full Store Page on second quarter 2019. Presenting many features such as ratings etc. in its entirety, there may be that Regional Pricing is perfect for even Indonesian players to enjoy.
With competition like this, of course, Epic Game Store will also implement many other features that Steam has such as Cloud Save, Early Access system and many more. Steam itself will definitely be motivated to compete, that’s where we consumers will benefit.
If you want to read other news about Epic Games, you can click this link.
Thanks to Indonesian Fellows at Reset Era, it has opened our eyes.
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