Steam’s main rival Epic Games has announced plans for the Epic First Run programme – a new ‘exclusivity scheme’ that will see developers of any size getting a 100% revenue share for the first six months.
In order to do that, they must agree to make their game exclusive on the Epic Games Store for six months. Afterwards, the game will revert to the standard Epic Games Store revenue split of 88% developer and 12% Epic Games.
All new games are eligible for the programme as long as they are released on or after October 16th and haven’t been previously released on another third-party PC store.
Publishers and developers will reportedly still be able to release products on their own stores or launchers. They can also sell them through other third-party storefronts as long as they use Epic’s “keyless distribution system” to do so.
The move appears to be designed to make more games exclusive to the Epic Games Store and take them away from competitors – most notably Valve’s Steam.
Epic Games Store launched in 2018, and a large part of its early success was due to exclusive game releases with titles like “Borderlands 3,” “Control” and “Hitman 3”. It’s a tactic has been contentious right from the start amongst the PC community.
Epic CEO Tim Sweeney said back in March that players should expect to see further high-profile Epic Games Store exclusives in the future.
Source: PC Gamer
