"That was physical. It cost a lot of money," he said. "This doesn't cost anything. So Epic has done a great job for the whole industry, because you get 88 percent. Fantastic move. Thank you very much."

"Ask yourself 'Why do they choose to go exclusive?" and I'll give you a hint," he added, "it's not to f***k up your life and force you to use multiple launchers."

https://www.pcgamer.com/former-paradox-interactive-ceo-calls-7030-revenue-split-outrageous/


I feel like this might be GoG's time to strike. They could give developers 90 percent and bring a whole host (hopefully/possibly) of new blood to the platform. Provided they can withstand a cut like that, but I fear as this platform war continues there's a good chance GoG's boat could get rocky if they don't figure something out fast to get front of the crowd.

is this the same CEO that introduced the "nickel and dime" DLC policy, or was that another?

He says this like there is no overhead at all in running a store. He's wrong, obviously. Even with their games selling well, EGS is operating at a loss. Dickhead needs to pull his head out his ass.

Yeah, we don't even know how sustainable that 88/12 split is. If Epic ever comes up with achievements, forums, shopping cart, etc that steam has and stops funding the store with Fortnite money maybe we'll see. Supposedly they will add all of that according to the roadmap - but they haven't been hitting their roadmap targets. I wouldn't be surprised that Epic raises their cut after a while.

The CEO when they went the excess dlc route was Fred Wester, they have a new CEO- whose background iirc is in free to play mobile apps so not much chance of improvement.

(Interestingly though, Paradox was going to have their own launcher/ store back in 2012, "Paradox Connect" which got murdered by steam changing their dlc policies and potentially excluding Paradox titles- same change as when EA's Origin was released. I wouldn't be in the least bit surprised if there was still some bad blood lingering over that even after 7 years)

Yeah. I love his games. But dang the DLC.

Complain as you will, basically everyone is doing it and it doesn't look to change. Especially on consoles.

Alternate hot take: Think of how your employees must have felt. Getting paid dick to run everything while the CEO dicks around and gets paid millions.

Considering high street stores they were selling games physical discs for the same price as digital ones on sale on the internet about 5 or 10 years ago.............

Paradox has their own store, right? Why don't they walk the talk and open their store to third party developers with a more generous split?

Paradox should keep their mouths shut tight. These sharks ask for arm and leg even for old games despite regional pricing recommendations they're getting from stores. If to consider how much they overcharged people for "air" (it's not physical product like they said) they have to hide in the bush when someone talks about unfair cut.

I paid what they asked for their games because that's classics but it does not mean I'm not holding a grudge. Paradox will go to hell if it will save them on heating bills, these sharks are the reason why modern games became expensive and shallow

Magika 2 pack for 60 bucks, EU 4 collection 150 bucks in country with 150 bucks of minimal wage and atrocious utility bills.

As much as I dislike Pdox, they're right on this, Steam is nothing but an unproductive parasitic middle-man. At least GOG actually try to earn their cut, their make a paragraph or two write ups for new game releases, they tweet about them, spend god knows how much in lawyer fees to uncover the lost legal rights to ancient games so they can be sold again. But Steam man, these days they do shit all, even their process for allowing games is practically just an automated computer process, with the only human input to make sure they aren't selling illegal content like child porn.

I think 10 years ago the Steam cut looked fine next to a huge retail percentage, along with all the benefits digital had over physical. Now though, with boxed retail becoming more and more a distant memory (especially for PC focused publishers like Paradox) that 30% cut is more and more looking unnecessary. I know many hate Epic for a variety of good and not as good reasons, but if they do lower the standard cut I think it will be a good thing for the industry as a whole.

I can see why Steam's 30% looks excessive given their sheer volume of trade, but I don't think 90/10 would be sustainable for GOG at all. They put in the most effort in getting older games to run, and unlike Valve, etc, also offer direct tech support for 3rd party games sold. Time will also tell whether 88/12 is actually sustainable for Epic or whether it's simply currently being run as a "loss leader" to gain market share that has ended up skewing some publishers perspectives somewhat, or that a more realistic non-subsidised long-term cut would be nearer 15-20%.

Also wasn't the "that was physical" cut nearer 40-50% once all costs were factored in (disc / packaging / manual design & manufacturing, distribution (putting those three together then shipping from manufacturer to retailer), high-street retailer cut, etc)? I'd be interested to see what the figures are still like for physical console discs once both the high-street and Sony / MS / Nintendo have had their cut too.

Edit, all I could find on the subject was this:-

$60 XBox 360 game = 20% Console Royalty Fee / 20% Retailer / 15% Marketing / 15% Developer / 30% Publisher

https://i.imgur.com/4NzhOKy.jpg

Even including marketing with developer / publisher, consoles work out to a whopping 60/40 split which is worse than even Steam. And I wonder how Paradox, etc, feel about the 66/33 publisher / developer split (after marketing has been paid for) being lowered to at least 50/50, or is that argument like the music industry where we only grumble about 'underpaid' studios, not the actual artists creating the product...

Is that a fact? Or is it just something that people on the internet present as if it's a fact, even though it's not? If it is a fact, then where is the hard data which proves it?

As for the OP: what that CEO said is absolutely correct. It doesn't cost 30% of a game's price to allow customers to download a copy of it. That's an outrageous cut most definitely.

I'm sure GOG could match or beat Epic Game Stores' 12% cut if only GOG stopped wasting money on reckless causes that provide no benefit to GOG customers, like: curation, the 10th anniversary site 'redesign,' turning Galaxy into a pseudo-launcher for DRM-infested games from other DRM-infested stores, etc.