Epic Games Store announced, offers 88% revenue split to all devs

Published December 4, 2018 8:00 AM, by Charles Singletary Jr

The launcher wars continue, but the battle may be experiencing its most significant shift in a long time. Epic Games, the creator of the Unreal engine and beneficiary of the pop culture phenomenon that is Fortnite, has announced the Epic Games Store.

"As developers ourselves, we wanted two things: a store with fair economics, and a direct relationship with players.," the Epic Games blog post reads. "And we've heard that many of you want this too!"

Just yesterday, EIC Asif Khan discussed the new revenue split that Valve revealed for the Steam store and how it is a "sign of weakness." Simply off perception, Epic's timing couldn't be better for developers looking for a better option. The Epic Games Store will have a universal revenue split of 88% for all developers with "no tiers or thresholds." If the developer is using Unreal Engine, Epic is taking the 5% of engine royalty for sales out of their 12%. Games created on all engines are welcome in the store.

Here's a break down of the rest of the benefits and features that come with Epic's new storefront:

• 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!

The blog post for the Epic Game Store also snuck in a tease that Epic Games will be debuting multiple games at The Game Awards 2018, which takes place December 6, 2018. Developers in Chatty, what are your thoughts on the Epic Games Store? Let us know and Stay tuned to Shacknews for additional updates.