Epic Games will stop seeking exclusives if Steam adopts 88/12 revenue split, says CEO

From GameWatcher: "Epic Games Store has, since its inception, been host to a significant number of timed (and some potentially permanent) game exclusives that Epic has drawn in with promises of a better revenue split and varying payouts.

Now, Tim Sweeney - the CEO of Epic - has vowed to cancel all future exclusivity purchases, should Valve adopt the infamous 88/12 revenue share across the board. For those who are not in-the-know, this means that 88% goes to the game publisher, while 12% is taken by Valve/Steam.

[ARESWARLORD]

That's only fair steam is totally gouging the publishers

[MIDNIITE_Z3RO]

Some publishers, not all. It's the indie publishers and smaller studios that suffer, rather than some of the larger ones... more notably the ones that seem to be doing exclusivity deals with Epic, which is why it's been such a hot topic.

[harmny]

Some publishers? Thats because bigger publishers build their own platform. Origin. Uplay. Bethesda launcher. Epic. Activision to battle net. Why do you think they did that? Because steam was nice? Nobody likes valve getting 30% of their profits

[TheHan]

Which proves that exclusives matter and can sway the audience

[opc]

@harmny

they did it because it makes sense. Even if Steam took 1% it would still make sense to sell them on your own and get 100%

[opc]

the indie publishers and smaller studios aren't even allowed on Epic, Origin or Uplay

[WombBat]

Publishers still suffer just not on the scale of an indie studio.

"If Steam committed to a permanent 88% revenue share for all developers and publishers without major strings attached, Epic would hastily organize a retreat from exclusives (while honoring our partner commitments) and consider putting our own games on Steam." -Tim Sweeney

Holy cow, I knew this was good for developers but dang, EGS is really about keeping what you make!

[Sophisticated_Chap]

It's no different than what Xbox and PlayStation charge publishers and developers. We don't know what Steam's costs are to run their business, and they have invested a lot of money into their platform over the years, with so many different features, across Windows, Linux and Mac.

Steam has also invented their new controller, they have come out with their own Steam OS operation system, and they have invested heavily in controller support, including with the PS4 controller, among other things. At the end of it all, they also want to make a profit. If there is no profit, then there is no incentive to be in business.

With Epic only taking a 12% cut, they will not invest in their PC store anywhere near to the extent that Steam has done. It's very easy for Epic to come in and charge developers 12% when they run a storefront with literally no features. Right now, Epic literally has nothing to lose by undercutting the competition, but it won't last.

Lastly, when people start defending the publishers, they are actually defending multi-billion dollar publicly traded corporations like Ubisoft, Activision, Warner Bros., Take Two, CapCom, Sega and others. The development studios are already paid for their work under contract by the publishers, with possible bonuses should they hit certain sales targets or Metacritic scores.

[Reefskye]

Only question that should be asked as Gamer is how does this benefit me? It doesn't. Competition is competing for your customers money. They ain't competing for your money by offering u a better deal, this whole we give developers more money is just a PR stunt of course the developers are so happy with their new deal why can't they offer discount? They don't c because this deal only benefits them, they don't care about you. They just hope you follow their epic love train while not giving a shit you have to use a below par launcher. Anyone who defends this just shows how much of an easy consumer most people are to manipulate.

[UltraNova]

Bombs have been dropped. Lord Gaben is deep in his bunker though.

[FlameBaitGod]

Bunker made out of money, in 2017 alone steam had a revenue of over 4 billion lol

[harmny]

And that's with 0 new games. Because nobody bought artifact. And then you want valve to make games lol. Gaben sits at his desk browsing Reddit and gets thousands of dollars per minute

[Concertoine]

Gaben is richer than President Trump

[JackBNimble]

Well maybe steam should go from being a free platform for their customers, to charging $60 yearly subscriptions like psn or xbox live.
After all, steam is much more then just a store .

I am willing to bet that half the people calling steam out have never even used it before.
Steam trumps psn and xbox live as a service, even origin and uplay doesn't compare.

Steam has well over 100 million user base and that's not because it's a shit platform for the PC community.

It will take epic at least a decade to even come close to being comparable to steam if ever.

And just to be clear , the suggestion to charge a subscription is pure sarcasm.

[carcarias]

Holy crap! 4 billion? I know it's not all profit but that's still colossal.

Yeah, I don't see Steam worrying too much at the moment then. I guess Half-life 3, from a money making point of view, is kinda small-fry at this juncture :(

[PapaBop]

Fake bombs more like, Epic are making these demands because they know Valve won't give in to them. Hypothetically, if Valve did give in to them and Epic didn't make good on their demands, from a corporate standpoint, Valve would look like an absolute idiot meanwhile Epic will just get the same hate from the same people anyway.

I hope Valve make changes to how they deliver profits especially for Indie developers who must feel the percentage cuts far more than the big publishers however this just screams at an easy PR grab.

[W34KN35S]

Exactly , I have thought about that as well and if that did happen it Valve would suffer. The other option is that Valve could continue to do nothing and just wait until Epic runs out of money to eliminate them as competitors. Their current business model of buying these exclusives isnt sustainable.Honestly steam could probably not do anything and still be fine.

[Cobra951]

It is common practice for a big business to undercut smaller ones, drive them out of business, then jack prices back up to more than make up the initial loss of profits. Here, Sweeney is tempting fate by asking for precisely this. I think it was a dumb move. He didn't have to promise Valve, or any of us, anything. Now he's on the hook.

[slavish0]

Bet steam does nothing.... Again

[opc]

What would you like them to do? They are going to be announcing a new VR system and new controllers in the next 2 or 3 weeks. They might even announce 3 games that they are rumored to be working on.

Here's what you've got to remember. Tim Sweeney and Tencent want Epic to compete with Steam. Valve want's Steam to compete with Playstation, Xbox, and Nintendo.

Epic is building a store. Valve is maintaining a feature-rich platform that has a store inside of it.

[Adexus]

"We'll stop taking hostages if you agree to our demands!"

[jznrpg]

Eh that’s a big reach. This is business

[KwietStorm_BLM]

It's an analogy. And it's actually perfect. It's just funny/curious that Sweeney would publicly make this statement. Comes off like the whole bigger picture of the Epic store is like trying to be the white Knight for publishers.

[harmny]

I wish hostages were paid 2 million dollars. Thats what epic hostages are getting

[RizBiz]

Probably a lot more than that to keep their games off of Steam.

[Kryptix]

Translation: "We MIGHT stop seeking exclusives. Actually, come to think of it. We're going to eventually backpedal on that statement and it'll all be the same, just Valve making less money."

That's how I see it. Difficult to trust an arrogant scumbag who doesn't mind forcing where the consumer goes by buying out exclusives that were already coming out on Steam into a launcher with lack of features & security.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media...

Also Valve allows other marketplaces to sell keys while Epic does not. Check that image out.

[TekoIie]

That image is brilliant.

One of the funny things is that everyone claims that EGS is going to result in us saving money but Valve already saved us a ton with their brilliant Steam Sales and CD key sites contribute to those savings. What can EGS do on top of that? It's not like the smaller cut they take has resulted in lower prices because the EGS versions cost the exact same as the console version which definitely take more than 12%.

[Cobra951]

Last I heard, hostages aren't hired to the tune of millions of dollars.

[Srhalo]

F off Epic.

I didn't really care that much, but what the actual fuck, they don't get to dictate what other companies do giving demands like they own the place.

[LordoftheCritics]

At least they are vocal.

In the world of business worse things happen behind the scenes. This is in fact more like a Robin hood moment.

[shadowraiden]

robin hood that spies on the poor and shuns them when they have any issue? there support and data issues are bad and may even lead to being banned in the EU because it breaks several EU laws.

[GameBoyColor]

More like a terrorist moment. We will release the hostages once you follow our demands LOL

[PapaBop]

They're not being vocal out of the goodness of their hearts or a desire to better the games industry, they are being vocal because they know Valve could never agree to such a thing in the short term. It's nothing more than another tool in their ever aggressive strategy for promoting their store.

[Teflon02]

That's arrogant, not vocal. They wanna f over the consumers to help the devs. The devs who are profiting. They just want to profit more. I get wanting to change it. But it's always been like that. Forcing consumers to deal with it is a issue in itself as it really doesn't hurt Valve that much realistically.

[opc]

Robinhood? Epic is worth way more than Valve...

Tencent--one of Epic's largest investors-- is the most profitable video game company in the world. They made 20 billion last year.

This isn't a robinhood moment at all. This is two behemoths getting together to operate at a loss in an attempt to muscle out the competition.

[jeromeface]

I for one am boycotting purchases on the epic store because I'm against exclusivity in the pc market. Suck on that Tim Sweeney. You lost a customer because of your bullshit and most likely many more.

[Asuka]

Does that mean you're going to boycott every game that utilizes the unreal engine? Otherwise your boycott comes off as half ass and at the end of the day you really don't care.

Also all this hate about exclusivity. How else do you think third party exclusives work on consoles? someone somewhere pays a sum of money to have a particular game on a particular console, and yet no one bats an eye but instead praises it for being exclusive to a particular console. The hypocrisy over this whole issue is astounding.

[Zenbaby369]

@Asuka I mean, he did say on the PC market. So your comment about the console market is irrelevant. Also, people do get upset about third party exclusives on consoles except the fanboy on the other console. Usually the third party exclusives are the most praised right?

[Asuka]

@zenbaby

So it's irrelevant because it's a different market? That's the hypocrisy I'm talking about lol. It's all still the video game market. It's all still the same publishers and developers. It's all the same money. Just a different platform in which you consume the media that you purchase.

[Aloren]

Every PC store has exclusives. Maybe except gog ? (Though it offers hundreds of old games you can't find anywhere else. ). Origin has exclusives, Battle.net has exclusives, Steam has thousands of exclusives... will you be boycotting them too ?

[opc]

@asuka it's irrelevant because we don't play games on consoles...

[opc]

@aloren

First party games are expected to be exclusive. Ubisoft's first party games are not exclusive. They are sold everywhere. Valve's first party games were actually available on Origin and Uplay briefly until EA and Ubi changed direction. Ubi doesn't sell any third party games now.

[fiveby9]

Console platform holders take a significant cut from developers too. Upwards of 30% as well. Why isn't Tim Sweeney whining about that? Tim Sweeney's faux virtuous business practices are a joke. EGS will eventually die off if they continue their current business practices and provide no benefit to the consumer.

[Christopher]

They're not dictating, they're saying what it would take for Epic to stop doing what they are doing.

At this point though there's nothing Epic could do to make people happy it seems since they've upset Pappa Gabe, which is the issue to begin with. People don't understand how non-competitive the PC market is and how less revolutionary it has been because of Steam. Only since Epic started 'stealing' games have Steam started really pushing on changes sooner than later on their road map. Why are they suddenly able to get more things done in the last year than before? It's a mystery.

Edit: Don't get me wrong, Epic needs to put their stuff up as well, but they're finally creating competition for Steam and Valve is taking them seriously. That's good for everyone. More competition means better advancements.

[Srhalo]

I can say 100% for certain nothing I say is motivated by GabeN.

Steam started changing things well before Epic Store existed, mostly because the storefront was such a mess. And if you have been paying attention almost everything they have changed recently was discussed before Epic store in an effort to clean house. One big example is the developer/publisher pages, those were a direct result of people complaining that it was hard to find games and were implemented well before Epic store.

Steam has competition Origin, Uplay, CD Key shops, Microsoft Store, Humble, GOG and many others. And speaking of them why isn't anyone asking them to give more to the publishers like they are Steam, Epic is keeping games off those platforms as well.

[Cobra951]

Amazing how competition works, isn't it? When you're undisputed top dog, you don't have to do anything outside your comfort zone--no improvements, no innovations, no better deals. Ask Intel how they feel about Ryzen right now? Suddenly, they're forced to up their game. So is "Pappa Gabe".

[rainslacker]

What are they demanding. They're just saying they'll stop buying exclusives if Steam changes their cut.

[rainslacker]

For years, Epic has spoken out for the customers, and the developers. Some vocal people on the net are all over their ass because of their decisions with the EGS, but people disregard all the times they've called out the same publishers in the industry which we call out daily. They call out MS for their attempts at UWP locking content into a closed ecosystem. They've called out the rampant increase in wasteful spending for AAA games and worked with publishers to build better systems into their game system...some of which disregarded it to make their own engines, and now those same publishers are still getting criticized.

Epic isn't perfect, but don't sit there and act like Epic is evil incarnate. They started their platform to have a better position to release fortnite. Same reason Blizzard made their own. Same reason EA and Ubisoft made their own. Epic isn't alone. They jumped the gun. But at least they're giving a fair cut to the devs and pubs. I don't agree with them buying content the way they are, but some people are going to extremes to make epic out to be akin to the devil.

[Reefskye]

@Rainslacker, what are they offering YOU though, What happened to the world when you should accept using sub standard service for a product you could buy for the same price with a much better service just because they give the product providers a better cut?

But even that is not what we have we Epic, you can't go anywhere else for this product because Epic flashed some cash and offered a better deal, while you as a consumer and left with a featureless launcher what can't even hold a candle to steam.

Is this honestly the world we live in now that people are willing to be shafted because epic give another company more of the money, really???. Their are many ways to compete without buying exclusives, Origin and uPlay prove that, but that's the point epic don't make games, they just trying to pull a fast one and hope they can just push as many sales as possible, all the while its the consumer who suffers.

[rainslacker]

I don't use any of their services, nor do I play any of their games. I have no vested interest in them at all, although I do know quite a few people who work there.

Sweeny wasn't wrong about UWP. He was wrong about one thing. But, he was right about it being about control for MS.

I simply asked the question of what they are demanding. No one has answered. EGS will build their services if there is demand and need. Keep asking, and eventually they'll do it. I know you don't like the exclusives, but it's what they feel they have to do to compete, and given how no other store front has made a dent with nothing more than better cuts, they probably aren't wrong. They should have fleshed it out more, I won't argue that, but to say that they are not interested in protecting the customers is just wrong. Sweeny has always been a proponent for both the industry and the consumer.

[TheGamez100]

Hate epic all you want but I do agree that steam is quite ridiculous with that cut. I doubt they even feel pressured atm with just a few exclusives though.

[opc]

Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo all take a similar cut.

Sony, Nintendo, MS, and Valve all maintain feature-rich platforms--with Steam having the most--and they all produce hardware. Epic takes 12% because they don't have features or hardware. They have a webpage that has like 50 games on it and that's it.

[franwex]

True but consoles are closed platforms. PCs are opened platforms. Meaning that console makers spent money making the consoles, so that’s a way of recovering the cost. Epic and Valve did not spend any money on hardware (maybe Valve, but a little bit).

[MasterChief3624]

I doubt he would follow through with it. I think he's using this opportunity to enact a much-needed change in the industry under the guise of an ultimatum.

[shadowraiden]

how about they instead actually work on their store client. you know the client that actively spies on you and accesses files it has no right to. the fact that they are under investigation in the EU because their data protection is shocking and not enough.
fact that they have literally no customer support at all.

[fsfsxii]

The whole 'it spies on me for hong kong" has been debunked since forever.
A bunch of DLLs is not Spyware. You think they' d still be in business if people found out they were actively spying on people?
Just act straight and say you hate the fortnite company lol

[Cobra951]

Yeah, that malicious disinformation has done its damage. If you can't beat them in the marketplace, destroy their reputation.

[shadowraiden]

erm no it wasnt debunked but sure believe what some CEO is going to say to save face.
and its not just a bunch of DLL's if you looked into it they are actively searching in files they have no right to search.

and yes they would be in business as guess what facebook was shown to be actively spying on people and oh look they still operate.

[Blu3_Berry]

Valve, the ball is in your park, yet you do nothing in response.

The sad thing is at this point I don't think Valve is going to do anything. Epic can keep buying all these timed-exclusive deals and that's it. Nothing is going to change. In the end we consumers lose. I don't see anything changing on both sides unless Epic gets extremely aggressive and buys every major 3rd-party game for the next few years. Even then, I still have my doubts that Valve will do anything. They're being so stubborn.

[PapaBop]

Yeah this is all evil Valve's fault and nothing to do with Epic's ever aggressive promotional strategy /s

What Epic is doing is essentially acting like terrorists, the large majority of Corporations aren't going to give in to terrorist demands. Epic know this hence why they are offering this. It'd be great for publishers if Valve started offering it but consumers aren't losing out because of Valve, they're currently losing out because of Epic.

[Blu3_Berry]

Yeah, I read over my comment and I retract what I said. I was tired this morning and I didn't think much about what I typed. I hate what Epic is doing and all these exclusivity timed deals. That is not gonna make people use your store, it will only drive them away. That along with a list of features that is not included. Funny thing is, Valve don't have to do anything about it and honestly I think Epic is going to keep fighting a losing battle.

[fsfsxii]

What terrorist gives you money to hang with them exclusively?

[Cobra951]

Terrorists don't pay you millions to denounce the Great Satan.

[opc]

Epic is worth a lot more than Valve. Tencent--one of Epic's largest investors-- is the most profitable video game company in the world.

Epic and Tencent together are willing to lose money in the short term in an attempt to take over the market.

I know it sounds absurd but Valve is the little guy here, they simply can't compete with 12%.

[CruzAli]

What? Good guy Epic? No way...

[xVOLTx]

Who is Epic to determine what percentage a business gets.... Other businesses don't tell each other how much they can make.

[spicelicka]

Well they're not really demanding, they're saying they'll stop seeking exclusives.

[00]

I'm smelling bullshit

I hope valve continues to ignore epic.

[SegaGamer]

Of course it's BS.

It's only a matter of time before Epic themselves raise that percentage beyond 12%. Epic are new, they need a lower percentage cut to attract companies to their store. Once their store gets bigger and once that Fortnite money runs out, they are going to need to find another way to make money, and that is when the percentage of their cut will rise beyond 12%.

[Atom666]

It's complete bullshit. We should believe that they're only spending $$ millions on exclusivity to get Steam to lower their cut and be an even greater competitor to Epic? Sure.

Sweeney is full of shit

[Spartacus10]

Ignore the competition who's taking market share away from you at an alarming rate because keyboard warriors on N4G have your back. Great piece of business advice right there.

[-Gespenst-]

Well Steam SHOULD do this. I just wonder how it would affect them though. How much do they need that extra money? Is there some other way they could generate it once they reduced their cut? I reckon if they released HL3 and it had some sort of good online multiplayer component they'd make a ton. Artifact has huge potential too (but it's sort of floundering at the moment).

[opc]

Go look up how much Epic and Tencent are worth and then go look up how much Valve is worth.

Valve simply can't compete in a battle of bank accounts. They need to be creative, which is why they have shifted into hardware in recent years.

[Profchaos]

This will result in cheaper games for everyday users so it would be great to see

[Elwenil]

Keep dreaming.

[Profchaos]

Why wouldn't it often keys are sold on third party retailers cheaper than steam because they have less commision

[Elwenil]

@Profchaos,

We already have great deals on PC games from a variety of retailers, but thinking that cutting the store's profits will lead to cheaper prices for consumers is complete folly. Epic is good for nothing but publishers, their polices are very anti-consumer so I wouldn't expect anything on our end from any of their BS.

[Rachel_Alucard]

Just like those who said games going digital would result in lower prices, that paid online would mean a better service, and that bigger budgets would mean better games?

You think throwing more money at something makes it better?

[Majinzo]

Will publishers get paid more because of this competition between these two?

[DillyDilly]

Extortion now Epic ? May you crash & burn in the long term

[Cobra951]

How is it extortion? If anything, I think Sweeney blundered here. If Valve actually take him up on his offer, then he has to either drop the aggressive competition, or take back what he said--which would make him a liar. He planted himself on the hot seat for no good reason.

[tochi]

Totally non-sense logic.

EPIC store adds NOTHING to games and charging 12% to publishers. That's not a bargain for them, and just stealing from customer, since they are charging the same price to us. Steam, on the other hand, adds a lot of features to games on the store, and charging the cost to publishers, not to us.

EPIC is inviting Steam to anti-competitive practice.
Are you happy, if Steam cut all of their store service and give extra money to publishers?

By the way, EPIC's money will never go to actual workers you are thinking about. Many developers said it by themselves that decision to accept the anti-competitive money was entirely publisher's decision. I wonder what makes you think that publisher give extra money to developer?

Stupidity of the people who is praising EPIC store's anti-competitive practice is beyond my understanding. Use your brain now. You are not publishers. You are customers.

[PlayableGamez-]

[X] Doubt.

[ArnoDorian]

It should've been an asking for Half-Life 3 and L4D3 :(

[AllMightyFox]

This is a sad attempt by Epic for publicity because long time Steam users aren't ditching their huge library of games...

Epic is literally telling another company how it should be run … You think Bill Gates listened to Steve Jobs on how to run Microsoft ??? ….. iPhone, ipad, Ipwn, Ismack

Or maybe Berkshire Hathaway should listen to how it should run from the heads of Enron ???

These articles are just children crying for attention !!!

CALIFORNIA SMASH !!!!!!

[Tesal]

Even if steam does 5% / 95% raito

Epic will try to go for more exclusives.

/Boycotting Epic Store/fortnite/Epic first parties etc will fix many of the exclusivity problems.

[fsfsxii]

Also boycott Unreal Engine titles, otherwisr, whats the point?

[OC_MurphysLaw]

Ummm.....sure. Totally believe them.

[MadLad]

So strongarm another storefront into changing their business plan and then MAYBE you'll stop your shady practices.

Interesting.

[Sirk7x]

Although I do think that Steam does take a bit too much from publishers, they probably also have far higher expenses (better infrastructure, more employees, etc) than Epic does, and might not be able to afford going that low.

[opc]

Epic has way more employees, but they are worth way more than Valve, and Epic has Tencent backing them. Tencent is the most profitable company in the video game industry.

Valve can't just throw money around like Epic and Tencent.

[Rachel_Alucard]

Tim picked 12% because he knows Valve can't match that without going into the red. He's just taunting them right now.

[lelo2play]

BS.

[--bienio--]

Never going to happen.

[AnubisG]

Interesting way to try and manipulate the markeplace. One might say, it's maffia style.

"Do what we want you to do or else."

Very interesting indeed.

[Cobra951]

No. It's simply a choice. Sweeney didn't have to restrict his options at all. I think it was a mistake.

[AnubisG]

Well, in essence everything is a choice. Trying to dictate how others run their business is a choice and either giving into this or not is also a choice.

However, it is a maffia tactic anywhere you look at it. Epic has no right to try to tell another company how they should run their business. Once they start going down that path, they will go further and keep justifying their actions.

We will see where this will go.

[CDbiggen]

All I see is the likes of Activision and EA rubbing their hands together at the thought.

[Malice-Flare]

right...

mind your own business, Sweeney. it's not even equal to Steam yet. without Fortnite backing you up that 12% won't fund the same features as Steam...

[fsfsxii]

Are you intentionally omitting unreal engine being used in pretty much every game nowadays?

[Malice-Flare]

if you want me to include that, i can consider EPIC a monopoly wielding it's hold on game developers to influence the market negatively...

[fsfsxii]

Lol, thats ironic because no one is forced into using UE. Its a fantastic engine, but sure, you fight the good fight lol
I'm sure you're also on the anime titty against sony front too.

[Malice-Flare]

there is no fight unless Sweeney tells Apple, Google and the others to adopt their unsustainable split and not just Steam, this is just a man high on money from Fortnite and UE royalties, thinking he can knock Valve off using monopoly tactics...

[RizBiz]

If they had offered this from the start, Epic Store probably wouldn't be so despised. I can only presume this is a PR stunt or damage control.

[uth11]

I call BS, Epic is only charging less because they are trying to get their store off the ground

[tontontam0]

88/12 split will benefit the developers, I don't understand why steamfanboys are still defending steam, when they could just hate epic and at the same time demand change from valve.

Because right now steam fanboys are like
"Fuck off epic we don't care it is business 70/30 split fine blablabla."

[joeynox]

It benefits the publisher not the developer. The publishers want more money

[ichizon]

I guess this is what happens when you give them a 15 year head start with a decent "streaming" alternative. No wonder Steam dominates the market. People don't want to install and log into 20 different gaming accounts. Only the biggest and best companies can compete.

I don't want to defend Steam's high sales cut, and I'm quite fond of Epic Games, but I don't like companies hogging exclusives to drive consumers to their own store. They should make their store more unique and attractive instead, like GoG offering nostalgia and games that are free from DRM. With all the recent competition, Steam has had time to adapt with a plethora of features.

That said, I am okay with shorter timed exclusives and self-published exclusives/launchers. The first one works as an advertisement for your service, that you can still get elsewhere in a short while. The latter one is just a means of not sharing your profits with a third party while stating that people already know about you.

[antarius]

Balls jn Steams court now. If they say no the steam only fanboys are going to be in a conundrum.

[GhostTurtle]

People who feed into this shit are a bunch of tools. Do you're own research and stop feeding into what this dude is saying. He's playing you all.

[TheVigilanteCode]

Horse shit.

He knows for a fact that Valve won't do that, and finding an excuse to ride on the exclusive train.

Nice try, Tim.

[Petebloodyonion]

LOL best April fool joke!
Honestly, How would this change from Steam, benefit the Epic games store?

[loxim]

How much does steam currently get?

[Maywell]

If Steam by doing that, will change the fair price model and make it bad, I would rather Steam be cool in silence.

I can play and enjoy decent enough games, it is all because of the fair price model Steam implemented. I don't live in US.

As a game consumer and customer, I support Steam, until I'm proven wrong. No buy from Epic Store.

[MaxiPower90]

steam are killing themselves... poor poor managment..

[Tross]

It's bold to try and blackmail Valve. Good luck with that Epic, but I'm not counting on you winning this one.

[tagzskie]

I don't care about steam cut to publisher or whatsoever, what i care as a consumer is being able to buy games super cheap.. I want benefits as a consumer. Im not publisher after all LOL

[Orionsangel]

Epic Games will stop seeking exclusives if Steam adopts 88/12 revenue split and Valve gives us Half Life 3! lol

[Orionsangel]

It's time for Valve to pay for leaving HL2 on a cliffhanger and never giving us HL3. So I have no sympathy for them. You reap what you sow. lol.

[joeynox]

Complete and utter horseshït. There's no way steam could survive at 12%. The epic game store won't be able to survive either at their current rate and Sweeney knows it . Epic/Tim are being scumbags and just want to disrupt pc gaming because they think fortnite made them king shīt. I fully understand publishers want more money and it's a 3 way deal between the platform (steam) the publisher and the developer but epic is acting like a damn terrorist. Gabe should walk out on stage at E3 and just give a big 🖕 to Sweeney.

[Bleucrunch]

Rather Arrogant for one company to tell another how to conduct business...Out of Sweeney's jurisdiction....really needs to chill out. Should worry about his company is managing things....the nerve of some people man.

[CrustifiedDibbs]

steam should do this for sure, but i don't buy epics bullshit for one second.

[maybelovehate]

I love this. Epic is the developers savior

[GravityMilk]

why we should care about company revenue shares fight? they fight for the money, not for the customer. this only benefits the companies only not us. let them fight and we are going to get the benefit of this fight. here's how?
they are going to make a big discount to win us. so, in the end, support the company who support us

[Cobra951]

You had it right at first. None of these companies are there to support us. They're there to make money. So what we need to do is patronize the companies that provide the best deals for us. The more of them, the better our choices.

[carcarias]

I love Steam and want all my games in one library...having said that, Steam's cut seems over the top.

As much as I dislike the idea of other launchers, indeed, I simply don't buy games that require them, I can't condone Steam being so aggressive with their 30% cut simply because they're practically a monopoly. It's a great service and maybe their overheads are more but you've gotta imagine that 12% would still be healthy profit.

If Steam relinquish, it'll mean Epic's tactics will have been for the overall good of gaming, imho. No more Epic exclusives (if they are true to their word) and more games on Steam that'll, at some point, go on sale :)

It's possible though that Epic say this, trying to act like the good guys, knowing full well that Steam won't budge so no one will ever call Epic's bluff. PR damage control if you will.

[Cobra951]

No, don't do that. What if they actually take you up on the challenge? Are you really going to stop competing for store-exclusive releases? Valve can lower their fees, marginalize the Epic store, then once you're not in strong-enough financial shape to eat into their market share, go right back to charging what they were before. Everyone loses, except them, of course.

[Codewow]

Valve could manage with even less revenue split. It would be cool to see them come out ahead with a better deal for devs.

[franwex]

Yawn...
Are we so tribal that we MUST take sides on where to download games too? What difference does it make where you download it from? It’s the same hardware and game.

But I guess we must.

[Reefskye]

This is where you miss the point, Yes it does matter when, your forced to use a service is that below standard, I suppose you buy your products from places that give their providers a better cut while they offer you the worst kind of service, Because what does it matter its the same product?

[franwex]

How is it a worse service when you are buying the same product?

If I was to buy GTA5 on Steam, or epic, or physical at Best Buy, or Gamespot if it’s the same exact game, so where does the service come from? Not including the game in the same site to download it again in the future?

I legit do not see what the issue is. Paying for exclusivity is lame, but if you were gonna get the game anyway how does it matter how you get it?

[Azurite]

They'd have to implement it in an organic/natural way to avoid as many requests for retroactive remunerations as possible.

[brich233]

What if Steam starts putting out exclusives tho?