Red Dead Redemption 2 PC sales were lacklustre for Epic Games

by Mark Tyson on 23 December 2019, 11:11

Tags: Rockstar, Valve, Epic Games

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Red Dead Redemption 2 was certainly a big release for PCs this year. However, some recent numbers released by Neilsen SuperData suggest its sales performance on PC was somewhat lacklustre. Could it be due to the restricted launch and involvement of the Epic Games Store (EGS)? That hypothesis doesn't seem to hold much water as Borderlands 3 sold 1.78 million units in its debut month on EGS.

RDR2 was probably one of the most hotly anticipated PC titles this year. The platform missed out on the first instalment, so some thought the sequel arriving on PC was another pie in the sky rumour. However, a year after heralding RDR2 on consoles as the second biggest entertainment industry launch ever (behind only GTA V), it confirmed a PC release was on the way. Then, a month later, it was available to purchase and play on PCs.

SuperData says that RDR2 sold 408,000 units on PC during its first month exclusive on the EGS "paling in comparison to other exclusive launches like Borderlands 3, which sold 1.78 million units in its debut month". However, there are some important differences between the launches to note.

The first difference between RDR2 and BL3 launches is that from the outset PC gamers knew that RDR2 would be releasing on Steam just a month later. BL3 is a timed exclusive on the EGS for a much fuller period - 6 months - until April 2020. This difference in timed exclusivity periods is significant.

Secondly, we must remember that RDR2 wasn't released an EGS 'exclusive' on PCs, it could rather be described as an 'anywhere-but-Steam' release. Other stores where you could grab RDR2 pre-Steam were; Greenman Gaming, Humble Store, GameStop and others. Furthermore, Rockstar pushed hard to gamers to buy RDR2 direct from its own new PC store, the Rockstar Games Launcher. We don't have figures for sales of RDR2 over all PC stores at the time of writing.

In other chart news, it is worth checking out the SuperData top grossing titles for Nov 2019, above. In total gamers spent $9.5 billion digitally across all games in November. You can see that RDR2 failed to register in the PC top 10 during the period.



HEXUS Forums :: 28 Comments

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Good.

Hopefully gamers are starting to realise just how bad the Epic store is for the PC gaming community, developers and publishers alike.

As a minimum, it shows that when people have a choice of where to buy something (i.e. there is genuine competition, rather than price fixing & exclusives) most prefer to buy elsewhere.
I guess it is mostly down to the fact that unless you had a reason to wait specifically to buy it on steam, then you could just buy it through the Rockstar launcher like I did, it would still be required to play anyway. Plus buying it through the launcher gave you some free gold or something, so even with all the epic hate aside it just wasn't the most attractive place to buy it.
Spud1
Good.

Hopefully gamers are starting to realise just how bad the Epic store is for the PC gaming community, developers and publishers alike.

As a minimum, it shows that when people have a choice of where to buy something (i.e. there is genuine competition, rather than price fixing & exclusives) most prefer to buy elsewhere.

Yep I agree that evil epic, giving more money to developers and trying to break a monopoly so there is more competition in the market place.

…oh wait.
Spud1
Good.

Hopefully gamers are starting to realise just how bad the Epic store is for the PC gaming community, developers and publishers alike.

As a minimum, it shows that when people have a choice of where to buy something (i.e. there is genuine competition, rather than price fixing & exclusives) most prefer to buy elsewhere.

why do people dislike the Epic store>
Spud1
Good.

Hopefully gamers are starting to realise just how bad the Epic store is for the PC gaming community, developers and publishers alike.

As a minimum, it shows that when people have a choice of where to buy something (i.e. there is genuine competition, rather than price fixing & exclusives) most prefer to buy elsewhere.

Utter rubbish, developers are getting a bigger cut and that matters for the industry as a whole but also especially to the smaller and indie devs where a lot of the innovation is. A handful of launchers might be good for convenience but it just breeds complacency, just look at how lack luster the last 3 or so years of Steam sales have been.

Also comparing Borderlands 3 to Red Dead Redemption 2 is apples to oranges. A brand new title exclusive to a single launcher for a year+ vs a title that has been out on a different platform for over a year which a much shorter exclusivity.

Percy1983
Yep I agree that evil epic, giving more money to developers and trying to break a monopoly so there is more competition in the market place.

…oh wait.

Exactly, its ultimately good for the industry and might get some of the big players to innoviate rather than just sit around counting cash. I don't think its a coincidence than Steams long over due UI refresh got released after the Epic launcher started gaining traction.

will19565
why do people dislike the Epic store>

People hate change about sums it up. I think a lot of people like to have all their games, friends etc in one place but you can hardly blame Epic for breaking Steam's near monopoly; just look at Origin, Uplay etc all of which have been around a lot longer.