Fortnite dev launches Epic Games Store that takes just 12% of revenue

The 30/70 revenue-sharing split that turned into something of an industry standard is on the ropes. Epic Games, the developer responsible for the Fortnite phenomenon, is launching its own game store. And like with its asset store for developers, Epic is planning to take a 12 percent cut of revenues. This will leave 88 percent for the people who actually make the games.

“As a developer ourselves, we have always wanted a platform with great economics that connects us directly with our players,” Epic Games CEO Time Sweeney explained in a statement. “Thanks to the success of Fortnite, we now have this and are ready to share it with other developers.”

Epic is planning to launch its Game Store with a small number of hand-picked titles. It will continue to add games throughout 2019, and Sweeney says his team will “open the store up more widely later on.” It plans to reveal some of the games that will show up on its store at The Game Awards on Thursday, December 6.

The Epic Games Store has an approval process for each game, but the company doesn’t plan to make judgments based on content.

“It will mostly focus on the technical side of things and general quality,” Sweeney told GamesBeat. “Except for adult-only content, we don’t plan to curate based on developers’ creative or artistic expression.”

Is Epic a threat to Steam?

Epic’s new market is a shot across the bow of Valve, which controls a significant portion of the PC gaming business. Valve’s Steam store has traditionally taken a 30 percent cut of revenues from every developer, but it just announced a change to that over the weekend. Steam still takes 30 percent for every game until they make $10 million in sales. From $10 million through $50 million, Steam now takes 25 percent. And it takes just 20 percent for every sale over $50 million.

Valve is clearly attempting to keep blockbuster publishers and developers from jumping to their own platforms. But now the Steam changes also look like a preemptive effort to stay competitive with Epic. But its new tiered revenue-sharing model does leave out indie developers. Epic, however, is making it clear that it plans to take just 12 percent across the board.

“We’re not looking to crush Steam any time soon,” Sweeney explained to GamesBeat. “We’re just building a store with a fair deal for developers that creates new opportunities for content creators.”

A developer-first approach

While Epic is starting small, the platform’s goal is to disrupt game distribution. And Epic knows that it has to compete with and undercut Steam to do that. The company provided the following graphic with its announcement materials, and it directly compares itself to Steam: