After only 10 months of operation, The Razer Game Store is closing permanently at 4AM EST on February 28 2019. According to a post on The Razer Game Store site, the closing is part of a company wide realignment plan.
The Razer Game Store was a digital storefront that provided Steam and Uplay keys to players. The store also provided discounts and rewards to users. Razer Game Store users are warned to retrieve any unused keys from the store before the shutdown occurs on February 28. Razer will also fulfil any pre-orders players currently have on upcoming games.
This was Razer’s first attempt at a digital storefront. Players who have Razer Gold or Silver Rewards will still be able to use these recurrences on other rewards.
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17 responses to “10 Months After Opening, The Razer Game Store Is Closing”
Razer had a game store?
Epic Store soon to follow I hope
The only reason why there are so many new stores popping up is because steam’s takes 30% of every single sale.
That’s a lot of money – especially since the steam platform has done nothing but stagnate (in terms of the program itself) while it’s got one finger up it’s arse and the other stuffing it’s face with 30% of everyone else pie.
The Epic store only charges developers 5% per sale for being on their store. That’s a huge revenue difference.
I hate there being so many different stores but the problem causing it is steam’s greed.
If all the different developers banded together, made a brand new store that gave them all near 100% profits for their own games, and would accept game key “imports” so they can import their steam library over….. then it’d be fine.
The Epic store only charges developers 12%.
Which is still significantly less than the cost of physical production, distribution and retail markup.
In return, Steam also offers a lot to developers/publishers in return in the form of reviews, curation, and data/analytics, plus more.
In my book, that is worth the 18% difference (Epic take 12% not 5%).
I went through this the last time this came up. You’re spot on by the way, so this isn’t a negative on your comment.
Years ago I saw a story showing it loosely cost $12 to make a game. I expect that’s higher now, so base it around $15. While its pretty cheap to make the actual disc, there are fees changed for licensing, either from the platform (eg Sony and Xbox) or characters/source material. Those are on a per disc basis.
End of the day, it costs up around that $15 mark. Which includes distribution costs to get it shipped to the market, and sold to the retailers. That sale is about $40 for a $60 game, leaving a profit margin to the retailer. That’s all for the US market, easily the biggest so the easiest to use here.
So they spend ~$15 to earn $40, which is a $25 profit. Get rid of that initial cost though, and collect the retailer profit, and suddenly losing that 30% to Steam is still worth it. Same $60 cost, lose $18 and make $42. Last time I checked, 42 is a bigger number than 25.
When you factor in everything else Steam adds along the way, its becomes a pretty decent deal to the publishers.
What Epic are doing here is using the windfall game of Fortnite’s success to create another business model they can use for years to come. Which sounds a lot like what Valve did when setting up Steam…
Completely agree
And while, yes, Epic are bringing a pre-built up customer base, their customer base is very closely related to their audience to a single select, or select few, titles.
Steams pre-built up audience are gamers of all varieties across every genre possible
I know which one is most likely to result in a greater conversion rate of browser to buyer
I’m not a fan of Epic with this, notably with the bait and switch issues with Metro, but the comparisons to how Valve started out shouldn’t be ignored here. Their start wasn’t smooth either, and it took time to prove their model was the future (and man were they right), so if we want competition to work we need to get Epic that same latitude.
To Epic’s credit, they aren’t just a library focussing on their own products like most of the other non-Steam ones are like Origin, Blizzard, etc. So they might get that variety eventually. Then we’ll have 3 options – Steam, Epic, and GoG.
Happy to give Epic that latitude to show they are “genuine” competitors, but as you said in relation to the bait-n-switch, genuine competition does not come through shady dealings.
I happily have Steam and GoG installed, and neither launcher/storefront are intrusive.
If Epic can do likewise, fairly and legitimately, I will happily add a 3rd to that list, but for now, not so much.
Happy to have time change my mind however.
Razer had a game store?
Yeah, this is why I only buy through steam. Now I know that these guys used steam keys so its a moot point.
But what happens if a service shuts down and I can’t access that title anymore?
That is a bloody good question, one I don’t think we will get an answer on until it actually comes up.
We don’t yet know what will happen with Epic, but we already have plenty of experience with Desura, Stardock Impulse and Direct2Drive…
You’ll find that most of these services label it as a subscription, and not a purchase in their user agreement things
If a service declares bankruptcy there’s nobody to sue regardless of what the TOS says.
And you can absolutely guarantee that the Epic Store is a separately incorporated but wholly owned subsidiary that Epic can sell or walk away from scot-free at any time.
I think you’ve answered your question in your question.
On steam at least the devs stated in the unlikely event steam shutdown they would patch the program to allow all the games to run.
http://i.imgur.com/4sa1Ln6.jpg
It was the same games on sale that every other store reseller has. I don’t give a shit how cheap darkstalkers 2 or brutal legend is, I don’t want them.