Epic Games’ continuing quest to get exclusives for its online store has proved unpopular with a number of folk. However, despite this, the company believes that the Epic Game Store getting more exclusives is actually beneficial for gamers.
In a recent discussion on Twitter, Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney spoke up about the practice, saying that it’s good for gamers in the long run. Specifically, Sweeney states that getting exclusives is the only way to end the standard 70/30 revenue split imposed on developers by the “dominant storefront” Steam.
Valve currently takes a 30 percent cut of the revenue from every game sold on Steam. In comparison to this, Epic only takes 12 percent from games sold on the Epic Game Store.
“The 30% store tax usually exceeds the entire profits of the developer who built the game that’s sold,” Sweeney said. “This is a disastrous situation for developers and publishers alike, so I believe the strategy of exclusives is proportionate to the problem.”
He then stated that “If the Epic strategy either succeeds in building a second major storefront for PC games with an 88/12 revenue split, or even just leads other stores to significantly improve their terms, the result will be a major wave of reinvestment in game development and a lowering of costs.”
Sweeney explains that with the increase in revenues, developers and publishers will be split between “reinvestment, profit, and price reduction.” Specifically, he states that increased competition among games will lead to companies spending more on making better games, while also making them more open to price reductions.
This is why Sweeney believes that what Epic Games is doing benefits gamers in the long run. If the Epic Games Store end up forcing Valve to make changes to Steam, and hopefully reduce the amount Valve takes, then the resulting increase in profits should result in better and cheaper games.
