[游戏] Epic谈独占、地铁事件与腾讯

据Variety报道，在GDC 2019上，Epic商城负责人 Steve Allison 两人对腾讯投资、独占争议、以及不久前的《地铁：离去》事件表明了自己的态度和看法。

报道原文如下：

After a short talk about the brief history and planned future for Epic Games Store, the people behind the service opened their GDC talk up to a packed room filled with developers.

And those present didn’t hold back.

They asked about how Epic would deal with porn in the store, if investor Tencent had any say in the way things were run at the company, the fallout from “Metro Exodus” move from Steam to an Epic Store exclusive, and whether they would ever create a publicly available “Epic Spy.”

One of the first questions asked was actually about “Unreal Tournament,” which Epic Games essentially mothballed in the wake of “Fortnite’s” rocketing success. But the question was about what investor Tencent had to do with that decision.

“Tencent has zero input into our business,” head of Epic Game Store Steve Allison said. “They don’t talk to us. They don’t suggest things. Everything we do is with our team. The final point of conversation is (Epic Games founder and CEO Tim Sweeney) and Tim takes no orders from Tencent.

“There was a significant investment Tencent made in the company and we like them, but they are not running our business.  We actually compete with them — they run ‘PUBG.'”

Another developer asked about the possibility of Epic Games eventually creating a stat service that could be used to track the popularity of games, estimate sales and see concurrent player numbers. Sergey Galyonkin, director of publishing strategy at Epic Games, created such a service to track Steam data called “Steam Spy.”

“Would you create an Epic Spy,” the developer wanted to know.

“I would love to share as much information as possible,” Galyonkin said. A sentiment echoed by Joe Kreiner, head of business development for the store.

“It’s our intent to share as much information as possible with developers,” he said.

But Allison said that Epic “can’t create Epic Spy.”

Finally, a developer asked about Epic Games Store’s decision to lock major games into exclusivity deals when they publish on the store and if that would continue “forever.” The developer also asked about the backlash Epic saw when it announced that “Metro Exodus,” which had been on sale on competitor Steam,” was pulled from that store and moved to the Epic Game Store.

Both Allison and Kreiner said that the company expected some pushback from the community but was caught off guard how bad it got. They also said it a misstep.

“We will definitely avoid that in the future,” Kreiner said.

In terms of Epic Games Store exclusives, Allison said he doesn’t think the company plans to do that “forever.”

“We will probably do it for awhile,” he said. “It’s about pushing the business model and helping (developers) thrive. But at some point, the industry will move down and match us (in terms of Epic’s 12% cut of sales.) At some point we could go to zero exclusives or very, very few. We definitely won’t be doing it at the scale we’re doing it now.”

Galyonkin noted that it’s likely that the industry will eventually start to match Epic Game’s 12% cut. There was a time, he pointed out, when Steam’s 30% cut was “extremely beneficial.”

“The other option was going to retail where they were charging 50% and you had to manage inventory,” he said. “So through retail, you got maybe 15%

“Now that we’re seeing costs are coming down it’s possible to operate a store with a smaller margin.”

自译：

在简短地介绍了Epic Games Store的历史和未来计划之后，该服务的开发人员在一个挤满开发者的房间里打开了GDC talk。

在场的人毫不克制地开始发问了。

他们被问及史诗将如何处理色情,腾讯的投资,《地铁：离乡》从Steam到Epic商店独占的影响,以及他们是否会创建一个公开的“Epic间谍。”

第一个被问到的问题实际上是关于《虚幻竞技场》的，在《Fortnite》获得巨大成功之后，那些Epic游戏基本上都被封存了。但问题是投资者腾讯与这一决定有何关系。

“腾讯对我们的业务没有任何投入，”Epic游戏商店的负责人史蒂夫·艾利森(Steve Allison)说。“他们不跟我们说话，也不会提建议。我们所做的一切都是为了我们的团队。最后一点是， Tim(Epic Games创始人兼CEO Tim Sweeney)不接受腾讯的任何命令。”

“腾讯对该公司进行了重大投资，我们很喜欢他们，但他们没有经营我们的业务。我们实际上和他们还有着竞争关系——他们可是《绝地求生大逃杀》的运营者。”

另一名开发者询问Epic Games是否有可能最终创建一个统计服务，用于跟踪游戏的受欢迎程度、估计销量和查看玩家数量。Epic Games出版策略总监Sergey Galyonkin创建了一个名为“Steam Spy”的服务来跟踪Steam数据。

“你会创造一个Epic间谍吗?”开发者想知道。

“我愿意分享尽可能多的信息，”Galyonkin说。该店业务发展主管乔•克雷纳(Joe Kreiner)也表达了同样的看法。

“我们的意图是与开发者分享尽可能多的信息，”他说，但是Allison说Epic“不能创造Epic Spy”。

最后，一位开发者询问了Epic Games Store是否决定在大型游戏发布时将其锁定为独家交易，以及这种情况是否会“永远”持续下去。当Epic saw宣布竞争对手Steam上正在销售的《地铁：离乡（Metro Exodus）》“被从那家商店撤下，搬到了Epic游戏商店”时，开发者也询问了他们的反应。

Allison和Kreiner都表示，公司预计会受到抵制，但没想到情况会变得如此糟糕。他们还说这是一个失误。

“我们将来肯定会避免这种情况，”克雷纳说。

谈到Epic Games商店的独家经营权，Allison说他不认为该公司打算“永远”这么做。

他说:“我们可能还会做一段时间。”“这是关于推动商业模式和帮助(开发人员)蓬勃发展。但在某一时刻，这个行业将会下滑，与我们旗鼓相当(Epic的销售额下降了12%)。在某种程度上，我们可以达到零排他或非常非常少。我们现在的规模肯定不会这么大。”

Galyonkin指出，游戏行业很可能最终会开始赶上Epic Game 12%的市场份额。他指出，曾有一段时间，Steam 30%的降价是“非常有益的”。

“另一个选择是零售，他们收取50%的费用，你必须管理库存，”他说。“所以通过零售，你可能得到15%

“现在我们看到成本正在下降，经营利润率更低的商店是可能的。”