Epic Games founder and CEO Tim Sweeney has taken to Twitter to declare Epic Store exclusives may not be around forever. Sweeney tweeted a thread about the company’s current revenue sharing policies, explaining what policy changes at Steam may cause Epic to change its mind about exclusivity deals.
Tim Sweeney began speaking about his company’s revenue sharing policies over Twitter a few days ago. The statements led to many responses from users, with one user asking what Epic Games would do if Valve decided to cut its revenue share. Sweeney responded by stating that if “Steam committed to a permanent 88% revenue share for all developers and publishers without major strings attached, Epic would hastily organize a retreat from exclusives (while honoring our partner commitments) and consider putting our own games on Steam.”
If Steam committed to a permanent 88% revenue share for all developers and publishers without major strings attached, Epic would hastily organize a retreat from exclusives (while honoring our partner commitments) and consider putting our own games on Steam.
— Tim Sweeney (@TimSweeneyEpic) April 25, 2019
The statement is the first time Tim Sweeney has indicated that Epic Games Store exclusives may not be around forever. Earlier this month, the CEO stated the company would be “open to continuing to sign funding/exclusivity deals with willing developers and publishers regardless of their previous plans or announcements around Steam.”
Sweeney followed up on his first tweet by saying “such a move would be a glorious moment in the history of PC gaming, and would have a sweeping impact … for generations to come.” Sweeney concluded that the move would return stores to being “nice places to buy stuff” rather than a “Game Developer IRS.”
The comments from Epic Games founder which prompted the recent responses centered around him explaining the idea behind the 88% revenue share. Sweeney explained that Steam’s “30% is an enormous markup.” He pointed out stores like Amazon and iTunes only take “10% to 15%” while credit card companies take less than “3.5%.”
The Epic Games Store exclusives controversy hit its peak with Borderlands 3. The move led to Steam user review-bombing previous versions of the game in response to its exclusivity deal.
