Today Epic Games, known for Fortnite and its massively popular Unreal Engine, made a surprise announcement that could have far-reaching consequences within the gaming industry, the Epic Games Store.
The store is a digital distribution platform similar to Steam, which will launch “soon” with “a hand-curated set of games on PC and Mac, then it will open up more broadly to other games and to Android and other open platforms throughout 2019.”
The announcement appears to go directly after Valve’s Steam as it shows how developers will receive 88% of the game’s revenue, with Epic’s cut being only 12%, compared to Steam’s 30%. On top of that, if a game is created in Unreal Engine, the 5% license fees will be included within Epic’s 12%.
The store will also have a newsfeed which will advise customers of updates and upcoming releases, and an opt-in affiliate system which will allow game creators to work with YouTubers and influencers to further advertise their titles. In order to kickstart this system, Epic will cover the first 5% of creator revenue-sharing for the first two years.
While the infographic above mentions Unity and Unreal, the store is open to games created with any engine.
Lastly, the developer promises that thanks to the high volume of transactions generated by Fortnite, the store will be able to process payments, and serve bandwidth and customer support very efficiently.
If you want to know more, further details and info on the lineup of games will come at The Game Awards that will hair this Thursday, Dec. 6.
