Current Events > Remember when Epic said their 12% store cut would lead to cheaper games?

(+) Yeah! (+)

https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2021/05/why-lower-platform-fees-dont-lead-to-lower-prices-on-the-epic-games-store/

There's something intuitively appealing to the idea of game publishers trying to attract more market share by "passing on the savings" of lower storefront commissions by lowering the asking price for their games. In practice, though, prices for the same title tend to remain consistent across platforms, regardless of the competing platform holders' specific revenue cuts.

The Epic Games Store's two-year-plus experiment in reduced platform fees provides plenty of evidence on this score. Just look at any of the dozens of games available on both the EGS (where Epic charges publishers a 12 percent fee) and Steam (where Valve charges a 30 percent standard fee).

In almost every case, those games will be offered at the same base price. Instead of passing on the savings, the publishers just pocket the 18 percentage-point difference between the EGS cut and the Steam cut. The only real exceptions come when a store is having a temporary sale, after which the games revert to identical prevailing pricing standards in almost every case.

Regardless, even if we remove Steam's alleged price-fixing from the equation, publishers still seem reluctant to pass on the savings from the EGS's lower cut. This is apparent when you look at the Epic Games Store PC exclusives that are also sold on consoles, where the platform holders each take their own 30 percent cut.
An Ars analysis found that out of 41 such games, only five were offered for a lower price on the EGS. The rest of the games were priced identically on PC and console, except for eight that were actually cheaper on console thanks to a temporary sale. Again, publishers largely aren't lowering their prices even though Epic has lowered its relative platform cut.

Womp womp


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Trickle down economics never worked and never will.

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lol, passing the savings onto the consumer.

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You mean trickle down doesn't work? Holy fuck, shocking.

Not a shot at you Darmik, just the ones that thought the lower cut actually would benefit buyers at all.

LightHawKnight posted...

Trickle down economics never worked and never will.

I thought the stated rationale was just about giving more money to devs.

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Epic is Ronald Reagan

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Epic game store has given thousands of free games without so much as a membership

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Antifar posted...

I thought the stated rationale was just about giving more money to devs.

Which is still more bullshit, because it goes to publishers, not developers.

No.
And I am not surprised.

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Antifar posted...

I thought the stated rationale was just about giving more money to devs.

yeah basically all the time I heard people talk about this as a good thing wasn't because it makes the games cheaper (games are cheap already)

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There was another topic about CC fees to vendors that had the same vibe. At the end of the day, you charge what people are willing to pay, not the costs.

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Antifar posted...

I thought the stated rationale was just about giving more money to devs.

Let me introduce you to Tim Sweeney

https://www.pcgamesn.com/epic-store-cheaper-games

After you go through several cycles of game developers making decisions, youre going to see lower prices as developers pass on the savings to customers, realising they can sell more copies if they have a better price, says Sweeney, speaking with Ars Technica during the Game Developers Conference last week. This sort of economic competition is really healthy for the whole industry and will lead the industry to a better place for all developers and for gamers as well.

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