Epic Games has announced that they will launch their own store, Epic Games Store. The announcement was made through the Unreal Engine side in Epic Game’s website.
The Epic Games Store will launch with a few hand-curated games for the PC and Mac first. On the other hand, more games as well as support for the Android and other open platforms will follow around 2019. In addition to this, Epic Games highlighted some of the principles of the store. Among them are:
All developers earn 88%
All developers who sell their games on the Epic Games Store will earn 88% of the sale. Epic Games will only take 12% of the cut. Furthermore, Epic Games will cover the 5% engine royalty for sales on the Epic Games Store, out from the 12% for Unreal Engine users. This means that Epic Games is allowing developers to earn a bigger profit when selling on their store compared to Valve’s Steam.
Have a direct relationship with players
Players who bought a game on the Epic Games Store will automatically subscribe to the game’s newsfeed. From there, developers can interact directly with the players through automatic game updates and news.
Connecting with Creators
Epic Games will help developers connect to Youtube content creators, Twitch streamers and others through their Epic Games Support-A-Creator program. The program aims to help connect developers with creators who in turn will connect them to players. In addition, Epic Games will cover 5% of the creator-sharing revenue for the first 24 months.
The release of the Epic Games Store seemed inevitable following the success of Fortnite. Both Fortnite and Unreal Engine had created a gaming ecosystem over the past year and the store is the result of that creation. The store also provides an alternative to Steam for developers.
For more information, you can check out the full announcement on the official site.
Source: Epic Games