Epic Games
2018 has been an eventful year in the video gaming industry, so far, and I’m not just talking about the games. This period of the eighth console generation might very well go down as an influential one as publishers push back against the industry status quo hoping to change the way consumers engage with their content moving forward. Let’s take a look at the key players and what they’re up to:
Epic Insists on Crossplay
Multiplatform games are nothing new, but Epic Games’ strategy with its sensationally popular Fortnite Battle Royale is something different —it represents a concerted drive from the publisher to make a game that’s playable anywhere and on any device. More than that, Epic has insisted that crossplay become a core pillar of the experience, allowing players on different platforms to compete against each other. And it’s this combination of Epic Games’ intent to achieve that and the game’s popularity that has started to mount pressure on any parties unwilling to accommodate the arrangement —namely, Sony. The unwillingness of the Japanese publisher to play ball has caused an uproar among consumers, even prompting popular streamers to speak out against what many consider to be a move motivated by greed. How much longer that continues is anybody’s guess, but you’d have to imagine publishers that command as much power as Epic Games is sure to influence Sony’s future strategies regarding crossplay. After all, if you can’t play the world’s most popular game versus your friends on PS4, why own the console in the first place?
A Viable Microtransaction Scheme
Microtransactions were a debacle in 2017. They’re still detested by many, of course, but Epic Games’ Battle Pass somehow made the process more palatable. The Pass weaves daily and weekly challenges into the standard gameplay loop, and recently, Fortnite has even seen the introduction of special themed events and minigames. For completing and taking part in these limited time modes, players can earn rewards to spend on their avatar. As a result of this perceived value, it marks one of the few occasions in which consumers seem to willingly accept continued payments for a product that’s otherwise completely free.
The value is certainly there. The Battle Pass is about $10 for a season, or $25 for the Premium version, which enables a set of challenges to unlock outfits and other cosmetics. The Battle Pass also lets you level up faster, and does not impact gameplay whatsoever. There is no pay-to-win mechanic.
After the hoo-hah over loot boxes and microtransactions last year, Epic’s Battle Pass is a breath of fresh air, and they deserve plenty of credit for their innovation. The Pass represents something of a crossover between a conventional microtransaction and a seasonal subscription model. It’s proved such a success that the game’s biggest rival, PUBG, has effectively copied the model with its event pass. And Rocket League, another hugely popular game, is following suit with a Rocket Pass’ of its own.
Encouraging Smaller Developers
Perhaps partly as a result of its newfound fortune, Epic has rather generously altered the creator split for their Unreal Engine Marketplace, a store where designers can sell assets made in the Unreal Engine.
Prior to the change that was announced on July 11, creators earned 70 percent of their profits on sales while Epic took the remaining 30 percent as the host of the Marketplace and supplier of the game engine. Epic changed the creator split to 88/12, seeing almost 90 percent going to creators. Not only did the publisher change how much of the profits sellers on the market would share, they retroactively awarded funds to sellers based on the new percentage system.
While decreasing their share in the profits might cost them money in the short term, the move also encourages more creators to design content to be sold on the Unreal Engine Marketplace. In a year marked by gamer and consumer-friendly decisions, Epic leads by example here.
Bethesda Game Studios
Fallout 76 Opts out of Steam
Bethesda is one of the three largest third-party publishers in the gaming business, alongside Ubisoft and EA. Their parent company, ZeniMax Media, owns six studios. While we normally think of Bethesda as the “Elder Scrolls and Fallout” developer, their sister companies make a wide variety of games. Their size as a publisher allows them great negotiating power in the industry. They are exercising some of that power with Fallout 76 and Elder Scrolls Legends; Bethesda wants to change how and where their games are played.
Fallout 76 is set to release only three years after Fallout 4, but it represents the series’ first foray into multiplayer. Notably, when the game launches on PC later this year, it won’t be available via Steam. Instead, Bethesda is abandoning the world’s most widely used client in favor of its own site, Bethesda.net.
Bethesda isn’t the first publisher to turn its back on Valve and Steam, of course. EA’s Origin and Ubisoft’s Uplay preceded it, but Bethesda’s move is no less symbolic of where things are going, moving forward. Publishers want to use their software as a focal point of their gaming habits, and as a way of driving increased earnings via their own platforms. Officially, Bethesda stated they wanted a more “direct relationship with the customer, that didn’t involve somebody else.”
Bethesda: Crossplay “Non-Negotiable”
Bethesda might be snubbing Steam, but they want everyone included for cross-play when it comes to Elder Scrolls: Legends, a digital card game. In an interview with Game Informer on Aug. 11, Bethesda’s Vice President of Global Marketing and Communications, Pete Hines, confessed that the company wants to allow players from all platforms to have the same game. But the real kicker is that he claimed the functionality was “non-negotiable,” implying that any publisher or client that stood in its way was liable to not be made an available platform.
Andrew Reiner, the executive editor at Game Informer, notes that “Hines didn’t outright name Sony in any capacity, but unless Bethesda is doing something different with its cross-platform efforts that conflicts with the freedom Xbox One and Switch currently allow, it has to be PlayStation 4.”
I mentioned earlier that mounting pressure was the only way Sony would ever relinquish its insistence on not allowing crossplay, and with Bethesda now joining the fray —albeit with a relatively small digital card game— in such a determined fashion, this might be the start of movement that sees crossplay become the norm between rival platforms.
Microsoft
The Xbox One has been playing second fiddle to the PS4 for the entire eight console generation, and Microsoft is understandably keen to close the gap. The issue, though, has been a lack of compelling software to elevate its level of appeal to that of Sony’s hardware, which has been flush with attractive first and third-party exclusives, particular over the past two years. Microsoft’s answer has instead been to create an ecosystem that offers unparalleled value, in addition to making a bunch of quality of life improvements to the Xbox One console. Last year, it announced that Game Pass, a subscription service that offered players unlimited access to a library of games for a monthly fee, would include all first-party games moving forward. The value was astronomical, but it’s just got even better.
Xbox All Access is a starting pack for new consumers that bundles either the Xbox One S console with Game Pass and Xbox Live for $21.99 per month over two years, or the two services with an Xbox One X for $34.99 per month, at which point the console is paid for and owned outright. In the case of the Xbox One S, the entire package is a whopping $130 less than buying all of the products and services together, and obviously with Game Pass’ value of over 100 games factored in, incomparable to the equivalent library on rival hardware.
With All Access, Microsoft has effectively turned the Xbox One into a recurring revenue platform, marketed similarly to how Apple sells its iPhones. You’re essentially leasing the product and have the option to upgrade it any time or cancel your subscription. Quite apart from flattening out the revenue curve for Microsoft moving forward, the strategy mitigates the competition, eliminating some of the risk that they’ll switch allegiances by keeping them within the ecosystem Microsoft has created. It’s clever stuff, and it could well be the future of gaming if it proves successful.
This article was written in collaboration with Tim Stover.
