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Weird West Review

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In this alternate universe, the West was won by trying a bunch of ideas so crazy they just might work… and if they don’t, hitting the quick-load button to revert to an earlier save and trying something even crazier until you pull it off. Thanks to that freedom to experiment with its world as you explore, Weird West is one of those games that feels like a stealth and combat playground even as it tells five mostly serious, well-written stories with interesting decisions throughout and a thoughtful conclusion. And with so much ground to cover and replayability to investigate, it’s well worth putting up with some quirks and underwhelming loot. What ties Weird West’s plot together is a group of shadowy figures using a magical brand to force your character’s consciousness into the bodies of various unsuspecting people. It’s a clever play on the way so many games have us take control of a character who already exists in that world but still need to bring us up to speed on their identity: h...
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Warhammer 40K: Rogue Trader – How Did it Take This Long to Get a Warhammer CRPG?

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It’s truly bizarre that across the nearly 30 years of Warhammer video games, we haven’t had a single one that attempted to channel the tabletop Warhammer experience by utilizing the genre that feels best suited to do so: CRPGs. But that’s all about to change, as Pathfinder developer Owlcats has been cooking up something to fill this void. During an extensive hands-off demo of Warhammer 40K: Rogue Trader, I checked out its extremely chunky turn-based combat system, drowned in its plethora of dialogue options and social skill checks, and nodded approvingly at its lovingly faithful depiction of Warhammer’s morbid universe. While it’s still very early, so far this CRPG is shaping up to be everything I’ve wanted from a Warhammer video game. If you’ve ever played (or even glanced at) a game of Warhammer 40K, then you probably know it’s designed for a hyper-specific kind of nerd who loves calculations, large-scale drama, and an incredibly detailed world one could easily get lost in. Warham...
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Epic Is Losing Hundreds of Millions As it Battles Steam

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Epic is set to lose at least $330 million in its battle to gain market share from Steam, mainly due to it offering exclusive games and free titles on its Epic Games Store. As reported by PC Gamer, Epic's legal fight with Apple has given us insight into how much Epic is spending to build up the Epic Games Store, including that it committed around $444 million to exclusivity deals in 2020 alone. [ignvideo url="https://www.ign.com/videos/2020/08/13/fortnite-1984-apple-parody-video-short"] This money was spent on "minimum guarantees" for games that are exclusive to the Epic Games Store for a year. Since these games will not appear on Steam, Epic is offering these guarantees as advances to publishers whether or not their games sell enough to cover it. For example, Epic paid 505 Games $10.45 million for Control exclusivity back in 2019. In Epic's end-of-year report, Epic confirmed that players spent $700 million on the Epic Games Store in 2020, but these third-party games only accounted for $265 million of that total. This reveals that Epic has yet to earn back the $444 million in advances to these third-party publishers and, even though some of these deals are surely for games in the future, Apple claims Epic is going to lose "at least $330 million in unrecouped costs from minimum guarantees alone," if 2019's deals are thrown in as well. Apple's projections, which can be seen here, hint that, when factoring in exclusives and all other expenses, the Epic Games Store may lose somewhere below $600 million in total by the end of 2021. It also suggests that the Epic Games Store will not be profitable until 2027. [widget path="global/article/imagegallery" parameters="albumSlug=games-that-came-back-from-the-brink-of-disaster&captions=true"] These estimates from Apple are from its summary of the arguments it plans to bring to court in May 2021 as it defends itself against Epic's antitrust complaint. Epic has already responded to these findings, and it shared that it expects the Epic Games Store to start earning annual profits in 2023. Furthermore, while Apple claims Epic is "losing money," Epic claims it is "investing money," and that this and its 12% revenue share are all part of the plan to take on the behemoth that is Steam. "EGS is not yet profitable at its current scale and stage of development because it has front-loaded its marketing and user acquisition costs to gain market share," reads Epic's filing, citing CEO Tim Sweeney. [ignvideo url="https://www.ign.com/videos/2020/08/13/apple-removes-fortnite-from-ios-app-store"] Epic and Apple are set to go to an in-person trial on May 3, 2021, over issues that all began when Epic implemented a direct-pay system into Fortnite that bypassed the Apple App Store and its 30% cut. Apple removed Fortnite from the App Store, and Epic then filed a lawsuit against the company, while also beginning its #FreeFortnite campaign. [poilib element="accentDivider"] Have a tip for us? Want to discuss a possible story? Please send an email to newstips@ign.com. Adam Bankhurst is a news writer for IGN. You can follow him on Twitter @AdamBankhurst and on Twitch.

source https://www.ign.com/articles/epic-is-losing-hundreds-of-millions-as-it-battles-to-gain-market-share-from-steam

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