The Epic Games Store is opening soon to all game developers and it’s launching a massive challenge to the leadership established over the years by Valve with Steam.
It’s doing so by significantly reducing the revenue split fellow developers will face compared to the established norm with Steam. On the Epic Games Store, 88% of revenue will remain in the hands of developers, whereas on Steam traditionally only 70% of revenue went to game studios while Valve kept the other 30%.
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A few days ago, Valve revealed a change for the revenue split where their fee would drop from 30% to 25% beyond $10 million in revenue and from 25% to 20% beyond $50 million. In retrospect, this hardly seems like a coincidence. Perhaps Valve caught wind of what Epic was about to do and tried to make a move hoping it would soften the blow.
It will be extremely interesting to see how game developers react to this news. It cannot be but good news for them, honestly, as more competition in this sector will surely improve the situation for them. In turn, creators should be able to retain more revenue for their games than before, which would be good news for all gamers as a whole.
Soon we’ll launch the Epic Games store, and begin a long journey to advance the cause of all developers. The store will launch with a hand-curated set of games on PC and Mac, then it will open up more broadly to other games and to Android and other open platforms throughout 2019.
The Epic Games store will operate on the following principles:
All Developers Earn 88%
Developers receive 88% of revenue. There are no tiers or thresholds. Epic takes 12%. And if you’re using Unreal Engine, Epic will cover the 5% engine royalty for sales on the Epic Games store, out of Epic’s 12%.
Have a Direct Relationship With Players
People who buy your games automatically subscribe to your newsfeed so you can reach them with game updates and news about upcoming releases. The newsfeed is front-and-center. You’ll also be able to reach your players through email, if they choose to share it.Connect with Creators
YouTube content creators, Twitch streamers, bloggers, and others are at the leading edge of game discovery. The 10,000-strong Epic Games Support-A-Creator program helps you reach creators, so they can help you reach players. If you opt to participate, creators who refer players to buy your game will receive a share of the revenue that you set (tracked by code or affiliate marketing link). To jumpstart the creator economy, Epic will cover the first 5% of creator revenue-sharing for the first 24 months.Developers Control Their Game Pages
As a developer, you control your game page and your newsfeed. There will be no store-placed ads or cross-marketing of competing games on your page, and no paid ads in search results.All Engines Are Welcome
The Epic Games store is open to games built with any engine, and the first releases span Unreal, Unity and internal engines.When You Succeed, We Succeed
We’ve built this store and its economic model so that Epic’s interests are aligned with your interests. Because of the high volume of Fortnite transactions, we can process store payments, serve bandwidth, and support customers very efficiently. From Epic’s 12% store fee, we’ll have a profitable business we’ll grow and reinvest in for years to come!
