Epic Games Store tops USD 680 million in player spending

[JonDnD 2,608]

Epic should buy Re3 then

[Goukosan 2,249]

1 hour ago, DynamiteCop! said:

Who cares what they say their forecast was? 

[madmaltese★ 2,550]

'who cares what their forecast was'

 

fucking dying 

[Hot Sauce 2,727]

That forecast is meaningless without context and very likely predates their AAA exclusive deals. I mean any publicly traded company would have their CEO fired if he actually announced to shareholders that the expected revenue of PC exclusivity on Metro Exodus, Control, Borderlands 3, and World War Z alone wouldn't top $180-million.

[madmaltese★ 2,550]

8 minutes ago, Hot Sauce said:

That forecast is meaningless without context and very likely predates their AAA exclusive deals. I mean any publicly traded company would have their CEO fired if he actually announced to shareholders that the expected revenue of PC exclusivity on Metro Exodus, Control, Borderlands 3, and World War Z alone wouldn't top $180-million.

The Forecast is quite literally the only important thing when releasing market/sales information to shareholders. It's why shares drop when a forecast isn't met (regardless if the sales figure is still incredibly impressive) and why a share can surge if a forecast is surpassed. It's also a very complicated process where forecasts have to be heavily backed by data and be extremely realistic as it has such an influence of publically traded company's valuations, it's why yearly forecasts are continually revised after poor or good quarters. You also don't intentionally low ball a forecast because it can heavily reduce investment and growth if shareholders don't see viable gains.  

 

Now obviously Epic Games isn't a publically traded company, yet the same financial practices still happen. The forecast is important in this case because it clearly shows their expectation on that front. It's clear seeing their methods that their no.1 priority is getting people to the store. What other steam competitor has 108m unqiue accounts that have downloaded a game and over 300m accounts, let alone in the time EGS has done it. Like I said before, the sales will come. That hasn't been their priority yet. 

[Goukosan 2,249]

42 minutes ago, madmaltese said:

'who cares what their forecast was'

 

fucking dying 

60% higher than forecasted.... who cares that's considered a flop 

[madmaltese★ 2,550]

1 minute ago, Goukosan said:

60% higher than forecasted.... who cares that's considered a flop 

Zero GP sub figures

Zero GP revenue figures

 

GP massive success

[Goukosan 2,249]

16 minutes ago, Hot Sauce said:

That forecast is meaningless without context and very likely predates their AAA exclusive deals. I mean any publicly traded company would have their CEO fired if he actually announced to shareholders that the expected revenue of PC exclusivity on Metro Exodus, Control, Borderlands 3, and World War Z alone wouldn't top $180-million.

The forecast is something shareholders would have had a year prior to this press release. 

 

The store performed 60% better than what was forecasted it would do.  Shareholders are happy... guaranteed. 

[DynamiteCop 2,085]

8 minutes ago, Goukosan said:

The forecast is something shareholders would have had a year prior to this press release. 

 

The store performed 60% better than what was forecasted it would do.  Shareholders are happy... guaranteed. 

Their forecast for 13 months and 222 games was $157 million?

 

Really ambitious 

Edited January 16, 2020 by DynamiteCop!

[Hot Sauce 2,727]

1 hour ago, madmaltese said:

You also don't intentionally low ball a forecast because it can heavily reduce investment and growth if shareholders don't see viable gains.  

I didn't say anything about intentionally low balling, but I'm glad we agree that a forecast well below reasonable expectations would affect shareholder confidence. You just need to come around on $180-million being below reasonable expectations if they knew about the number and popularity of games they'd have on the service.

[Goukosan 2,249]

2 hours ago, DynamiteCop! said:

Their forecast for 13 months and 222 games was $157 million?

 

Really ambitious 

over 100 million unique accounts and 60% over forecasted revenue in 13 months is a success anyway you slice it. 

[DynamiteCop 2,085]

44 minutes ago, Goukosan said:

over 100 million unique accounts and 60% over forecasted revenue in 13 months is a success anyway you slice it. 

100 million accounts no doubt tied to just Fortnite and people getting free games with no intention of spending a dime. As far as their actual store is concerned and selling games, and people adopting it to purchase games; it's an abysmal failure. 

 

$251 million dollars spanning 222 games including paid for AAA exclusives over a 13 month period is horrible, conversation over, it's inarguable. 

Edited January 16, 2020 by DynamiteCop!

[madmaltese★ 2,550]

2 hours ago, Hot Sauce said:

I didn't say anything about intentionally low balling, but I'm glad we agree that a forecast well below reasonable expectations would affect shareholder confidence. You just need to come around on $180-million being below reasonable expectations if they knew about the number and popularity of games they'd have on the service.

I think you're underestimating just how difficult the PC market was to crack when Steam had such a monopoly and as such the expectation were quite reasonable. Nothing great but for what is basically the first proper year they expected to start slow and projected to. All business plans are about projected growth and the expenses it will take to achieve that growth. They clearly beat their expectations even though the overall sale figure is nothing amazing, mostly likely very clearly showing they were going for those customer numbers over actual revenue as their free games strategy has been crazy. I also think those deals had a lot more planning than you're anticipating and that they clearly would've earmarked many games to go after well in advance. I mean for eg, Godfall is months away, we never heard of it and the deal is already done and who knows how many months ago those talks started.   

[Goukosan 2,249]

8 hours ago, DynamiteCop! said:

100 million accounts no doubt tied to just Fortnite and people getting free games with no intention of spending a dime. As far as their actual store is concerned and selling games, and people adopting it to purchase games; it's an abysmal failure. 

 

$251 million dollars spanning 222 games including paid for AAA exclusives over a 13 month period is horrible, conversation over, it's inarguable. 

No you're just a retard trying to downplay over 100 million unique active accounts and 60% over forecasted revenue 

[DynamiteCop 2,085]

58 minutes ago, Goukosan said:

No you're just a retard trying to downplay over 100 million unique active accounts and 60% over forecasted revenue 

Straight retarded. 

[Hot Sauce 2,727]

17 hours ago, madmaltese said:

I think you're underestimating just how difficult the PC market was to crack when Steam had such a monopoly and as such the expectation were quite reasonable. Nothing great but for what is basically the first proper year they expected to start slow and projected to.

I don't think I am.

 

My expectations for game sales on Epic's store when those games are available on Epic's store and Steam simultaneously or coming to Epic's store after Steam are very low. Outside of Epic's coupons I see little reason why anybody would buy a game on Epic's store and my expectations are in accordance with that. If third-party revenue was forecasted to be $178-million on the back of those kinds of games I would think that might be a high and ending up with $285-million would be a fucking wild success.

 

Those expectations are separate from my expectations for the exclusive, big budget, popular games that my posts in this thread have centred around and were exclusive to Epic's store, so they didn't have that competition from Steam. Steam isn't the big barrier to purchase in these cases, though similar products are always going to compete for your money so Steam's impact isn't completely zero. The big barrier for these games is getting the client in front of people to make that purchase and that has been hugely successful. 108 million people purchased a game or downloaded a F2P one. That's an even better metric than just unique accounts, too, because they had to download the client and actively use it to get to that point.

 

17 hours ago, madmaltese said:

I also think those deals had a lot more planning than you're anticipating and that they clearly would've earmarked many games to go after well in advance.

I'm not completely writing off the idea that the deals existed, I'm saying if they did and those were the projections they would have been far too conservative for a publicly traded company. Gross revenue of sales for Metro, Control, World War Z, and Borderlands 3 not meeting $180-million? Like what is the breakdown on revenue to make that kind of forecast reasonable?

 

Borderlands 3: $90-million (1.5 million units at $60)

Metro: $30-million (0.5 million units at $60)

Control: $30-million (0.5 million units at $60)

World War Z: $10-million (0.25 million units at $35)

 

That is the absolute bare minimum I would expect if those games came out on a client that actively told you it was a virus. The total revenue between those 4 games comes out to $160-million.

 

The newest Total War game sold a million copies at $60 in a week on Steam, Remij posted about the Master Chief Collection selling 2 million copies at $40 in 2 days on Steam, Monster Hunter World sold 4.5 million copies at (presumably) various price points over 7 months on Steam. Like I get that nobody is going to do Steam numbers in their first year and I don't think an original IP like Control is going to move the same number of units or generate the same amount of revenue as the long awaited PC ports of Halo or Monster Hunter World. I just cannot get on board the idea that anything less than the figures I posted would be the expectations for GreenManGaming announcing they're making a client and have locked those games in as exclusives while they struggle to get an install base and have limited capital, let alone the Fortnite client and the truckloads of money Epic has spent advertising and using loss leaders to get people into their ecosystem.

 

At that $160-million floor, that's $20-million for the other 200+ games left in their forecast. That works out to an average of $100,000 per game. That's 10,000 copies of a $10 game, 5,000 of a $20 game, and 1,670 copies of a $60 game. That's not reasonable.

 

17 hours ago, madmaltese said:

I mean for eg, Godfall is months away, we never heard of it and the deal is already done and who knows how many months ago those talks started.   

Sure, but they've already announced Godfall coming to Epic. I'm not sure they're really holding back on announcing deals, which they would have had to have done with Borderlands 3's Epic exclusivity being announced in April.

 

I still don't even think that would necessarily mean it wouldn't be accounted for either. Like maybe they forecasted having a AAA game exclusive to their platform, it just wasn't specifically Borderlands 3 at that point. Maybe they just had the budget earmarked, expected smaller games for what they were willing to spend, and expected to get turned down when they offered $10-million for something like Control.

 

I'm not trying to frame it as Epic being nefarious or intentionally undercutting expectations to have a bullet point a year down the line, just that you guys are being a bit silly reciting a static, annual financial projection that doesn't even fill in one side of a P&L projection that would be referenced and adjusted monthly internally and shared with shareholders at a minimum of quarterly on even established products because of the volatility of business. There's too much context missing.

Edited January 16, 2020 by Hot Sauce

[jehurey 3,227]

Epic Games Store is probably already the #2 PC gaming digital store behind Steam.

 

Already leapfrogging GOG, Greenmangaming, and the Windows Store.

 

I'd consider that to be successful for their first full year.

 

I think hardcore PC gamers will have no choice but to buy their exclusives, and I think they will cultivate people to stay on the store for longer by adding more features similar to Steam. Like communities, and streaming.

 

Considering that the original alternative for Epic Games would've been putting Fortnite on Steam, Tim Sweeney would've lost hundred of million of dollars to Valve for the monetary transaction fees that they would've made selling Booster Packs and other DLC for their huge game.

 

So, from his point of view, setting up the Epic Games Store cost him almost no extra money, whatsoever.

[kaz 2,439]

25 minutes ago, jehurey said:

Epic Games Store is probably already the #2 PC gaming digital store behind Steam.

 

Already leapfrogging GOG, Greenmangaming, and the Windows Store.

 

I'd consider that to be successful for their first full year.

 

I think hardcore PC gamers will have no choice but to buy their exclusives, and I think they will cultivate people to stay on the store for longer by adding more features similar to Steam. Like communities, and streaming.

 

Considering that the original alternative for Epic Games would've been putting Fortnite on Steam, Tim Sweeney would've lost hundred of million of dollars to Valve for the monetary transaction fees that they would've made selling Booster Packs and other DLC for their huge game.

 

So, from his point of view, setting up the Epic Games Store cost him almost no extra money, whatsoever.

[madmaltese★ 2,550]

55 minutes ago, Hot Sauce said:

I don't think I am.

 

My expectations for game sales on Epic's store when those games are available on Epic's store and Steam simultaneously or coming to Epic's store after Steam are very low. Outside of Epic's coupons I see little reason why anybody would buy a game on Epic's store and my expectations are in accordance with that. If third-party revenue was forecasted to be $178-million on the back of those kinds of games I would think that might be a high and ending up with $285-million would be a fucking wild success.

 

Those expectations are separate from my expectations for the exclusive, big budget, popular games that my posts in this thread have centred around and were exclusive to Epic's store, so they didn't have that competition from Steam. Steam isn't the big barrier to purchase in these cases, though similar products are always going to compete for your money so Steam's impact isn't completely zero. The big barrier for these games is getting the client in front of people to make that purchase and that has been hugely successful. 108 million people purchased a game or downloaded a F2P one. That's an even better metric than just unique accounts, too, because they had to download the client and actively use it to get to that point.

 

I'm not completely writing off the idea that the deals existed, I'm saying if they did and those were the projections they would have been far too conservative for a publicly traded company. Gross revenue of sales for Metro, Control, World War Z, and Borderlands 3 not meeting $180-million? Like what is the breakdown on revenue to make that kind of forecast reasonable?

 

Borderlands 3: $90-million (1.5 million units at $60)

Metro: $30-million (0.5 million units at $60)

Control: $30-million (0.5 million units at $60)

World War Z: $10-million (0.25 million units at $35)

 

That is the absolute bare minimum I would expect if those games came out on a client that actively told you it was a virus. The total revenue between those 4 games comes out to $160-million.

 

The newest Total War game sold a million copies at $60 in a week on Steam, Remij posted about the Master Chief Collection selling 2 million copies at $40 in 2 days on Steam, Monster Hunter World sold 4.5 million copies at (presumably) various price points over 7 months on Steam. Like I get that nobody is going to do Steam numbers in their first year and I don't think an original IP like Control is going to move the same number of units or generate the same amount of revenue as the long awaited PC ports of Halo or Monster Hunter World. I just cannot get on board the idea that anything less than the figures I posted would be the expectations for GreenManGaming announcing they're making a client and have locked those games in as exclusives while they struggle to get an install base and have limited capital, let alone the Fortnite client and the truckloads of money Epic has spent advertising and using loss leaders to get people into their ecosystem.

 

At that $160-million floor, that's $20-million for the other 200+ games left in their forecast. That works out to an average of $100,000 per game. That's 10,000 copies of a $10 game, 5,000 of a $20 game, and 1,670 copies of a $60 game. That's not reasonable.

 

Sure, but they've already announced Godfall coming to Epic. I'm not sure they're really holding back on announcing deals, which they would have had to have done with Borderlands 3's Epic exclusivity being announced in April.

 

I still don't even think that would necessarily mean it wouldn't be accounted for either. Like maybe they forecasted having a AAA game exclusive to their platform, it just wasn't specifically Borderlands 3 at that point. Maybe they just had the budget earmarked, expected smaller games for what they were willing to spend, and expected to get turned down when they offered $10-million for something like Control.

 

I'm not trying to frame it as Epic being nefarious or intentionally undercutting expectations to have a bullet point a year down the line, just that you guys are being a bit silly reciting a static, annual financial projection that doesn't even fill in one side of a P&L projection that would be referenced and adjusted monthly internally and shared with shareholders at a minimum of quarterly on even established products because of the volatility of business. There's too much context missing.

 Most of the things you're saying I agree with. I don't think they expected to sell much third party hence their forecast expectations. I think that's why the forecast is so important, because it provides context on their expectations and would also gives hints at their strategy and with their full business plan looked like. I guarantee their forecast for this year will be much higher. They just wanted to get ppl using the store, mostly with their free game offerings which they have done in abundance.

 

Those sales estimates are probably very close to being accurate if not higher than what happened. We know that Control was a pretty giant bomb, even on console. Would be surprised if it sold 500K on PC tbh. They had good critically acclaimed games but outside of Borderlands 3 nothing would be a big seller. And yeah outside of those big games who would buy the smaller stuff when it's all free basically anyway. 

 

I think their figures are impressive foremost because of the client numbers, not the sales, but the fact sales were significantly higher than forecast is also positive. 

[Hot Sauce 2,727]

37 minutes ago, madmaltese said:

Those sales estimates are probably very close to being accurate if not higher than what happened. We know that Control was a pretty giant bomb, even on console. Would be surprised if it sold 500K on PC tbh.

The publisher of Control's earnings report had revenue from Control across all platforms at only €17.7 million at the end of September, so you're definitely right that it is short of 500,000 on PC. Epic's €9.5 million deal to have it exclusively on Epic's store was about a third of that game's total revenue two months in so I'm sure the devs are glad the Epic store is a thing.

 

49 minutes ago, madmaltese said:

I think their figures are impressive foremost because of the client numbers, not the sales, but the fact sales were significantly higher than forecast is also positive. 

Their client numbers are massive and there's no doubt the store as a whole is a massive success. As Jehurey pointed out, even just Epic avoiding the 30% cut on Steam is enough to justify it and everything else is gravy.

 

I think another impressive thing about their total store revenue is that it's actually higher than Ubisoft's PC revenue of $660-million and not too far off from EA's PC revenue of $880-million. The $251-million third-party game sales is also over 8 times that of GOG, so maybe I'm just being too hard on EGS.