Epic paid $10.5 million for Control exclusivity deal

[midian182]

In brief: While it’s no secret that Epic is paying a lot of money to bring title exclusively to its Epic Games Store, the company has never revealed exact figures. Now, however, we know how much it paid for Control, one of the year’s biggest and best games: $10.49 million.

The information comes courtesy of an Italian earnings report from publisher 505 Games’ parent company, Digital Bros., which was highlighted by Niko Partners senior analyst Daniel Ahmad. It shows that the exclusivity deal for Control was worth €9.49 million ($10.49 million).

“Revenue comes from the computer version of Control,” reads a translated part of the report. "The game was released on August 27 but the structure of the marketplace who requested the PC exclusivity has made possible to gain the revenue starting from this quarter."

In July, Ooblets developer Glumberland revealed that its Epic exclusivity deal offered "a minimum guarantee on sales that would match what we’d be wanting to earn if we were just selling Ooblets across all the stores."

As Ars Technica notes, if Digital Bros. got a similar deal, it won’t get any more money from the Epic Games Store’s sales of Control until it earns back the €9.49 million upfront payment, which means selling 200,000 units or more.

There remains a large portion of people who resent games becoming Epic store exclusives, as proved by the backlash to Borderlands 3, Metro Exodus, Shenmue 3, Ooblets, and pretty much every title that announces deals. But Epic isn’t slowing down when it comes to securing these games and is willing to pay millions for them.

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https://www.techspot.com/news/82010-epic-paid-105-million-control-exclusivity-deal.html

 

[amghwk]

"...One of the year's biggest and best games..."??

Hmmm...I sincerely never knew about this game (never even heard of it) until seeing this article.

On the topic of exclusivity, I as a consumer would definitely buy wherever it is sold cheaper. If it's exclusive AND made more expensive because of exclusivity, then I won't get it. At least not until the sale. Though I must admit I am getting tired of installing another new launcher.

Anyway, I have stopped buying games when released new. Already have other games to play, and will only get newer games when they are at least 50% off.

 

[Uncle Al]

Considering that average take on these games, this $10M is a drop in the bucket and is simply written off as a marketing cost but as stated before, I also have never heard of this game but perhaps it hasn't launched in the US yet ..... has it?

 

[MMWWMM]

Did I hear it right.
Paying to the publisher for one store exclusivity even if this store have lower margins than Steam, and not the other way around.
This is crazy world.

 

[Peter Farkas]

Giving us a better service than Steam would make us think about switching over. Good luck with that though.
is this exclusivity there for a limited time after release or permanent? Permy excl. would not make too much sense for the millions of us out there having steam as our primary platform. I am not going to install another installer to collect tons of data from my PC just because there is a game only sold by them... I just skip games/stores like that. Give it to me on Steam or give me a better service than Steam to make me move over...
They could have spent that 10 mil on upgrading their platform also...

 

[kevbev89]

Guess I should just quit playing any new games at this point.............................
I don't care, never using Epic Games launcher.

 

[Adhmuz]

"Control, one of the year’s biggest and best games"

Also in the crowd that has never heard of this game, is it so exclusive to the Epic Games store that you need to have it installed to have heard of it?

Sad that Tim is buying off devs to put their games on his crappy store to try and get people to use it. Once Fortnite dies off Epic Games store will also die off, at least I hope so.

 

[Theinsanegamer]

This kind of behaviour is why so many of us hate the epic store. Epic is jsut the rich kid throwing mone around trying to make friends. it is scummy, disengenuous, and unsustainable.

Screw epic. If developers are willing to sell their souls for Epic access, then theyd eserve the lower sales that go with it.

 

[motoDrizzt]

Simply put: I don't want to install another launcher.

I was using Steam.
Then Windows forced me to install its launcher for a game I bought ON PHYSICAL SUPPORT.
Then Blizzard, for a game I bought ON PHYSICAL SUPPORT.
Then Origin...for a game I bought ON PHYSICAL SUPPORT.

And the Origin one was not even working properly 9 time out of 10.
The Windows one too.

Know what? I decided that they can go to hell, disinstalled everything and now I'm using only Steam.
It's not that I'm a Steam fanatic, and let's be honest Steam sucks badly too for some things, but I can't have to install a new launcher for EVERY COMPANY. Now, if a game wants a specific launcher and store account, I simply don't buy it.

 

[IAMTHESTIG]

Steam sucked when it first came out, and from what I recall Valve forced us to use Steam to install Half Life 2, even if you bought the physical optical media version.

I agree though buying exclusivity is a kick in the plumbs of every gamer out there and is pretty pathetic.

 

[poohbear]

"...One of the year's biggest and best games..."??

Hmmm...I sincerely never knew about this game (never even heard of it) until seeing this article.

On the topic of exclusivity, I as a consumer would definitely buy wherever it is sold cheaper. If it's exclusive AND made more expensive because of exclusivity, then I won't get it. At least not until the sale. Though I must admit I am getting tired of installing another new launcher.

Anyway, I have stopped buying games when released new. Already have other games to play, and will only get newer games when they are at least 50% off.

I'm guessing a big part of that is because it's not on Steam. Assuming you're a Steam-only user.

 

[cliffordcooley]

At this point I'm not spending money on Epic until I know they will stick around. I will however grab all the freebies they throw out until then.

 

[kevbev89]

Steam sucked when it first came out, and from what I recall Valve forced us to use Steam to install Half Life 2, even if you bought the physical optical media version.

I agree though buying exclusivity is a kick in the plumbs of every gamer out there and is pretty pathetic.

At the very very least it was a game that Valve actually made.

 

[indiferenc]

Steam sucked when it first came out, and from what I recall Valve forced us to use Steam to install Half Life 2, even if you bought the physical optical media version.

I agree though buying exclusivity is a kick in the plumbs of every gamer out there and is pretty pathetic.

I love this argument

so if a company came out with a new gaming console, it would have to start with comadore 64 hardware and graphics? or atari level? or if a new car manufacturer started making cars, they would have to be on par with the model-t? the reason we humans are able to progress is because we can learn from past mistakes, and choose not to make them again or improve. epic is ignoring 16 years of game launcher evolution.

 

[MMWWMM]

Simply put: I don't want to install another launcher.

I was using Steam.
Then Windows forced me to install its launcher for a game I bought ON PHYSICAL SUPPORT.
Then Blizzard, for a game I bought ON PHYSICAL SUPPORT.
Then Origin...for a game I bought ON PHYSICAL SUPPORT.

And the Origin one was not even working properly 9 time out of 10.
The Windows one too.

Know what? I decided that they can go to hell, disinstalled everything and now I'm using only Steam.
It's not that I'm a Steam fanatic, and let's be honest Steam sucks badly too for some things, but I can't have to install a new launcher for EVERY COMPANY. Now, if a game wants a specific launcher and store account, I simply don't buy it.

GOG Galaxy is also a good store
It have nice community (Granted not as large as Steam) and big plus for me is ability to just download install packages for offline use, or installation on old windows XP for the OG experience

 

[Xallisto]

"...One of the year's biggest and best games..."??

Hmmm...I sincerely never knew about this game (never even heard of it) until seeing this article.

On the topic of exclusivity, I as a consumer would definitely buy wherever it is sold cheaper. If it's exclusive AND made more expensive because of exclusivity, then I won't get it. At least not until the sale. Though I must admit I am getting tired of installing another new launcher.

Anyway, I have stopped buying games when released new. Already have other games to play, and will only get newer games when they are at least 50% off.

Tired of installing new launchers? That's the way the industry is going there is no sense in railing against it.

Before long everyone will have their own.

 

[Puiu]

Steam sucked when it first came out, and from what I recall Valve forced us to use Steam to install Half Life 2, even if you bought the physical optical media version.

I agree though buying exclusivity is a kick in the plumbs of every gamer out there and is pretty pathetic.

Please don't compare software from decades ago with what we have today. Technology evolved, lessons have been learned, case studies have been written and standards have been introduced. It's like releasing a browser with no html5 and css3 support in 2019.

FYI nobody is angry at Epic because of first party software exclusivity, just third party exclusivity (that's where the cancer is). They can keep Fornite on their platform as many others do. Epic went the anti-consumer route and people are not happy about it at all. Cancer spreads if succesful, and you can see this in many markets (console market, smartphone market, home streaming market, etc etc). imagine a world where you can't look for good deals on multiple stores because of exclusivity. (I would personally lose hundreds if not thousands of dollars)

Just be glad that gamers are fighting against it.