Discussions surrounding Epic Games Store exclusives often get heated, the practice receiving plenty of criticism from gamers as it ramped up over the past few months.
After doing so in the past, Epic CEO Tim Sweeny again defended the company’s seizing of exclusives, saying that it is “the only strategy that will change the 70/30 status quo at a large enough scale to permanently affect the whole game industry.”
Tim Sweeny Defends Epic Games Store Exclusives
Sweeny then continued elaborating his position on Epic Games Store exclusives over on Twitter, pointing out how despite having done “good work”, independent stores haven’t managed to come anywhere near to Steam’s scale.
After reaffirming that Epic’s exclusives are “working”, Sweeny proceeded with explaining how he judges “whether a disruptive move” like exclusives is “reasonable in gaming”. The two questions used are the following: “Is the solution proportionate to the problem it addresses, and are gamers likely benefit from the end goal if it’s ultimately achieved?”
“The 30% store tax usually exceeds the entire profits of the developer who built the game that’s sold.”, he continued, calling the situation “disastrous for developers and publishers alike”. If the Epic Games Store establishes itself as a major storefront with a better revenue split or simply determines other stores to offer better deals, Sweeny claims it would bring “a major wave of reinvestment in game development and a lowering of costs.”
“I believe this approach passes the test of ultimately benefitting gamers after game storefronts have rebalanced and developers have reinvested more of their fruits of their labor into creation rather than taxation.”, he stated before concluding the series of tweets by acknowledging that “LOTS of challenges” are bound to appear and that Epic “is fully committed to solving all problems that arise for gamers are (sic) partners”.
This isn’t the first time Tim Sweeny has claimed that the Epic Games Store aims to cause a change in the attitude of other storefronts either. Back in April he stated that Epic “would hastily organize a retreat from exclusives”, provided Steam agreed to an 88/12 revenue split instead of its current 70/30. With the Epic Store continuing to push for exclusives and bound to receive a set of needed features in the coming month, time will tell whether this change in attitude will happen.
