Epic: If Steam gives more money to developers, we’ll stop exclusives

If Steam gives 88 percent of game revenues to developers and publishers, Epic will stop all exclusive agreements it has with publishers. The company would also consider offering their games on Steam. Now Steam keeps up to 30 percent itself.

Epic Games founder Tim Sweeney writes this on Twitter. He is responding to questions from Twitter users who believe that the Epic Games Store’s exclusivity deals are unfair to consumers. If Steam were to “permanently” give 88 percent of its revenue to all publishers and developers, without any “big catches,” Epic would “quickly” pull out of the exclusivity deals it has entered into with game publishers.

Sweeney’s tweets also show that he believes that the maximum 30 percent transfer demanded by Steam is the biggest problem that game developers and publishers now face. Epic is “determined” to change this. That’s why Epic continues to make exclusive deals with game publishers, Sweeney writes. Epic has made deals with publishers like Ubisoft, which will release The Division 2 and Anno 1800 only for the Ubisoft Store and the Epic Games Store. Borderlands 3 will also initially only be available for the Epic Games digital store.

According to Sweeney, the twelve percent that Epic asks is enough for Epic to make a profit. The resulting additional revenue for developers will enable them to “solve most of the problems they currently face,” Sweeney said.

Valve now asks 30 percent of game publishers and developers until a game reaches $10 million in revenue on Steam. After that, Valve asks for 25 percent of the game revenues, until fifty million dollars in sales have been achieved. Valve asks 20 percent of all game revenues that follow. By game revenues Valve also understands parts such as in-game purchases and DLC.