Main Menu

Zombie Army 4 to be Epic Store exclusive...

Started by The Amstor Computer, 12 July, 2019, 02:55:02 PM

Previous topic - Next topic

The Amstor Computer

News from Develop: Brighton - https://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2019-07-12-jason-kingsley-epic-is-paying-through-the-nose-to-build-its-store


QuoteJust a month after Jason Kingsley told MCV he would need a "bloody good reason" to do an Epic Store exclusive, Rebellion Developments signed just such a deal for Zombie Army 4.

On stage at Develop:Brighton this week with journalist Seth Barton, studio founders Jason and Chris Kingsley spoke more about what provoked the change in tact, conceding it was "bit of an embarrassing interview to give" as a result.

"Generally I think I would prefer not to do exclusives but I understand Epic's position with it, and quite frankly they are paying through the nose to build their store," said Jason. "All credit to them, it's fantastic, and we'll take some of their money, thank you very much."

...

It was all part of the "attractive package" Epic put forward, noted Jason, who said the company was "keen to help support the game."

"Sometimes, as an independent developer, you've gotta take your chances," he said. "When something like that is offered... you sort of share the risk and share the reward."

It's becoming the pattern with Epic that they are splashing around a lot of money to secure exclusives, from lower-profile crowd-funded projects like Phoenix Point to higher-profile Kickstarter titles like Shenmue 3, all the way to larger titles from third-parties like Metro and ZA4.

I can understand the business appeal to a lot of outfits, but as a customer the Epic Store offers none of the features I want, and with the lower store cut and the money being spent on securing titles like this, as well as the investment in time, staff and money being put into Fortnite I don't see anything like feature parity with Steam coming soon.

I see the comparison regularly that this is just like Xbox vs PlayStation in terms of platform exclusives, but I think that given the bare-bones Epic Store and the apparent lack of interest from Epic in improving that (I think their roadmap for feature improvement had features due in April that still haven't materialised) that's a bit disingenuous; one is a mature store backed up by a suite of tools to make PC gaming better, the other is a launcher and not much else. For developers and publishers, the more favourable cut and the reduction of risk upfront is clearly appealing. For customers though...


GrudgeJohnDeed

Quote from: The Amstor Computer on 12 July, 2019, 02:55:02 PM
I see the comparison regularly that this is just like Xbox vs PlayStation in terms of platform exclusives, but..


Another major difference for me is that Sony and Microsoft very rarely just pay big third party publishers the crazy amount of money it would take to make them go platform exclusive with a game they were already making, robbing the other consoles of big franchises that are usually multi-platform. Most Sony and MS exclusives have their development funded directly by those companies, or in some other way wouldn't have even been developed without Sony or MS.

I really don't like Epic's tactics myself (the kickstarter sniping is especially dirty) but hey if J-dog makes more money this way than he would've otherwise, and that money means better costumes in the Dredd tv show or *cross all my fingers* expediates the development of a Dredd game, crack on. I'll be playing ZAT4 on Xbox anyway!