![]() ![]() In tandem with the store announcement, Epic also plans to launch a Support-A-Creator program, which connects developers to YouTubers, streamers, etc. Whether developers use Unity, GameMaker, or any other engine to make your games, Epic is willing to sell those titles under its umbrella. To get anywhere close to the same revenue split on Steam, a creator would have to make $50 million in revenue on Steam alone before getting to an 80/20 split, with engine fees still on top.ĭespite Epic being the creators of the Unreal Engine, there's no limitations for what kind of games can appear on the store. If a developer's game uses UE4, copies sold on Epic's store don't give a separate percentage to Epic, encouraging developers and publishers to direct their fans to the Epic Game Store and buy there. The company also made this change with its Unreal asset store earlier this year, again citing the massive profits from Fortnite as the reason they can afford a thinner profit off store purchases.Īnother prong of Epic's developer-friendly approach is waiving all Unreal Engine royalty fees for revenue generated on the store. The absurd amount of money that Fortnite makes every day clearly allowed Epic to invest the money into making this more developer-friendly store. ![]() “Thanks to the success of Fortnite, we now have this and are ready to share it with other developers.” “As a developer ourselves, we have always wanted a platform with great economics that connects us directly with our players,” Epic Games founder and CEO Tim Sweeney said in a press statement. Perhaps anticipating this move, Valve recently made adjustments to Steam's revenue model, but only above certain thresholds that most games won't hit. This is a big change considering the traditional industry standard for digital revenue split usually gives 30 percent to the store owner, whether it be Sony, Nintendo, Microsoft, Apple, Android, or Valve. The Epic Games Store is launching as a full-fledged game marketplace supporting all sorts of titles. The Fortnite developer hopes to incentivize developers to come over to the Epic Games Store by pushing the revenue split for software further than any platform holder has before, giving developers 88 percent of the revenues while keeping 12 percent for overhead. I've reached out to GOG for more information on its plans for the future and will update if I receive a reply.Epic Games, developer of titles like Fortnite, the first Gears of War trilogy, and Unreal Tournament, has announced the creation of a new digital PC store that hopes to compete with Steam by offering an unprecedented revenue split for developers. Which is probably what GOG needs if it wants to end up as more than just a boutique platform for CD Projekt's own games. But the promise of increased curation and re-commitment to absolutely, positively no DRM is a consumer-focused commitment-practically a plea to its existing fanbase-and that's bound to have an impact on what ends up on its storefront in the future. Nielubowicz clarified later in the presentation that the changes will be mainly behind-the-scenes and "should not have any direct influence on GOG sales" of games by either CD Projekt or external studios. The same is presumably true for the CD Projekt online services that are being moved to CD Projekt Red: The external support operations being provided by GOG are causing losses, and so they're being cut. The financial losses incurred by GOG sound primarily structural, which explains the internal changes-by pulling out of the Gwent consortium, for instance, GOG will no longer be responsible for expenses incurred by the service (and also won't get its portion of the revenues, but apparently that doesn't justify the expense). But its greater ambitions were made clear with the release of GOG Galaxy, an optional launcher released in 2015 (the vastly updated GOG Galaxy 2.0 launched in 2019 and is in "open beta"), and an increased focus on new game releases. ![]() The storefront launched in 2008 as Good Old Games, a niche platform focused on retro PC games and no digital rights management: Unlike Steam, GOG users could simply download full games to their PC and do whatever they wanted with them, without requiring an external launcher or internet connection. It's interesting to see CD Projekt opting for a "return to its roots" approach to changing GOG's course. "First and foremost, we've decided that GOG should focus more on its core business activity-which means offering a handpicked selection of games with its unique DRM-free philosophy." "Regarding GOG-its performance does present a challenge and recently we've taken measures to improve its financial standing," CD Projekt chief financial officer Piotr Nielubowicz said in an investors call ( transcript). ![]()
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