Newsgroup: it.comp.giochi.action
Titolo: The true motive behind Epic Games Store explained with timeline

https://www.reddit.com/r/pcgaming/comments/cxyzkf/the_true_motive_behind_epic_games_store_explained/
 
 
Part 1: The Questions
When everything is said and done, there are still two big questions 
surrounding the whole Epic Games Store debacle that interest me:
 
Why does Epic Games Store seem to be in a hurry trying to aggressively 
acquire exclusives?
 
They seem to have all the money in the world. Why didn't they establish 
deals with major publishers before even announcing the store so that the 
store can launch with a variety of flagship titles and don't look empty. 
Epic Games Store instead launched with only THREE games and a dozen games 
in the coming months.
 
They hurried to launch the store and now have to hurry to fill it, which 
is what they've been doing for the last 8 months. From a business 
standpoint, snatching any upcoming games just a month before their release 
seems to be gambling and making it up as you go along. There's just no 
reason for them to do this unless there's a time constraint.
 
Why did Epic Games Store launch in such an early state lacking so many 
important features?
 
Shouldn't they want the first impression of their store to be as good as 
possible? What seems to be the rush? Nobody, not even Steam, was finishing 
any race or snatching any prize. What was the drive to push it out as 
quick as possible? Is there some sort of deadline?
 
 
 
Part 2: The Timeline
Let's look at this timeline of events that I think are very relevant to my 
theory:
 
June 2012 - Tencent acquired 48.6% of outstanding shares of Epic stock, 
equating to 40% of total stock.s
 
October 2012 - Valve and Perfect World announce that Perfect World own 
exclusive rights to operate and distribute Dota 2 in China.s
 
April 2015 - Steam Spy, a website that uses the Steam API to estimate the 
number of sales of a title sold through Steam, was launched. Sole creator 
and developer, Sergey Galyonkin.s
 
February 2016 - Sergey Galyonkin joined Epic Games as Head of Publishing, 
Eastern Europe division.s
 
March 2017 - PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds launched into Early Access on 
Steam after a successful closed beta.s
 
August 2017 - Sergey Galyonkin was promoted to Director of Publishing 
Strategy.s
 
November 2017 - Tencent acquired the rights to publish PlayerUnknown's 
Battlegrounds in China.s
 
December 2017 - PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds left Early Access and 
officially released on Steam after having and continuing to skyrocket in 
popularity. The November 2017 Hardware Survey on Steam showed a massive 
rise in Chinese users who were then the absolute dominating demographics 
at 64% of total users.s
 
November 2018 - Valve and Perfect World announced Steam China. An 
independent version of Steam in China operated by Perfect World.s
 
December 2018 - Epic Games announced Epic Games Store.s
 
 
 
Part 3: The Theory
Tencent want a two-way game distribution portal to connect the chinese 
market to the rest of the world.
 
In 2012, Tencent and Epic Games collided with similar ideas to move 
towards the "games as a service" model, which led to the acquisition. By 
2016, Epic Games realized that some of the most successful ever 
implementations of such model are all in the hands of Valve, in the form 
of Steam, and their F2P games such as Dota 2 or Team Fortress 2 (you can 
also CS:GO). They probably already knew from eariler that the best way to 
have full control on profit flow of Unreal Engine 4 games was to have them 
on a platform owned entirely by Epic. They employed the creator of Steam 
Spy presumably to discuss prospects of a storefront.
 
Throughout mid 2017, PUBG caught everybody off guard. Lightning in a 
bottle, it skyrocketed Steam usage among chinese to a record never before 
seen despite Steam being technically blocked and "outlawed" in China. Even 
when Tencent snatched publishing rights for PUBG in China, nobody could 
still deny that a major portion of the potential profit went straight out 
of China. Tencent presumably couldn't or didn't want to strike a deal 
directly with Valve, since Valve have always been working with Perfect 
World, almost a direct rival to Tencent in the chinese market.
 
Near end of 2018, people were speculating and they were correct, Steam was 
coming to China. Valve partnered with Perfect World to establish probably 
the biggest bridge ever between China and the west, and Tencent got no 
piece in it. Tencent presumably urged Epic to push a storefront out as 
fast as possible so they can then introduce it back to China, effectively 
replicating Steam China.
 
The idea here is that Tencent will have pretty much half the control over 
a (intended to be major) game distribution platform in the west so that 
they can freely distribute chinese games through it without dealing with a 
third party like Valve. And then, Tencent will effectively have rights to 
publish Epic Games Store games in China without having to personally deal 
with the publishers (like Valve did with Perfect World for Dota 2). 
Meaning, Tencent inherently own the rights to publish Epic Games Store 
games without explicitly acquiring them through new deals, and if these 
games are exclusive, then Tencent own the exclusive rights.
 
Tencent presumably struck a "blank check" deal with Epic. Meaning Epic 
will get to spend whatever it takes to establish itself as a storefront, 
and this allows them to aggressively buy out exclusives and give away 
games.
 
The Epic Games Store feels rushed because it is intended to race against 
Steam China. Once Steam China is officially out (announced to launch with 
40 games), it will be a tough act to follow if the next platform does not 
have things that users can get on neither Steam China nor Steam itself.
 
 
 
Part 4: The Prediction
Steam China has no officially release date, but knowing Perfect World, 
it'll probably be launched by end of this year or beginning of next year 
(maybe during Lunar New Year). That is the deadline for Epic. From now til 
then, we will see a lot more exclusives. And in the future after Steam 
China's official launch, it's likely that we will see Tencent-owned games 
moving to the Epic Games Store, like League of Legends (currently 
distributed by Riot Games, an American company) and a variety of F2P MMOs.
 
Finally, we will see Epic Games Store coming to China.
 
 
 
Part 5: The Conclusion
I personally think that there is a lot of smoke and mirror going on around 
this. Tim Sweeney in particular seems to be trying desperately to draw 
attention to himself as some kind of public enemy, to distract people from 
the fact that this is Tencent's biggest entry into the western game market 
since acquiring Riot Games and in turn, League of Legends.
 
From a business standpoint, it makes no sense that the CEO of Epic Games 
would be this reckless in public relations, especially after years of 
building himself up as a major PC development figure. I can only assume 
he's under massive pressure from half of his board of investors. Reminder 
that even Tim Sweeney was perfectly truthful (which he wasn't) in saying 
that Tencent would never have a say in their "creative decision", this 
isn't a creative matter, this is business cut and dry.
 
The whole revenue cut and competing with Steam seems to be a good story 
that Epic might have come up with as early as 2016 (and might have 
involved Sergey Galyonkin). But as of now it looks to just be another 
illusion. It makes no sense that Tencent will let their 330-million-dollar 
investment run amok like a kid with his dad's gun (and wallet).
 
My experience with cases like these is that you don't look at the one 
making the most noise, you look at the one with the biggest firepower

> https:[]
 
Ma soprattutto:
PERCHE' SWEENEY NON PARLA DI BIBBIANO??
EH?
 
-- 
Il Papa guarda la neve dalla finestra. Poi uscirà a fare il pupazzo.

 EH?
 
E' PEGGIO DI BARRAI
 

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Ci resta solo che affidarci al sacro cuore immacolato di Maria.
Che sicuramente ci porterà alla vittoria! (cit.)
 
-- 
Belluno, parroco investe bimbo di 6 anni. Si segue la pista del delitto 
passionale.