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As six-month exclusivity scheme launches.
Following Epic’s announcement in August it would give third-party developers 100 percent of revenue for six months of Epic Games Store exclusivity on new games, the company – which laid off 16% of its workforce earlier this month – is now attempting to get developers on its storefront by promising 100% revenue on their back catalogue titles.
Today marks the official launch of the company’s Epic First Run scheme, described as an “opt-in exclusivity program for third-party developers and publishers” that promises to boost Epic’s usual 88% revenue cut for developers all the way up to 100% if they agree to keep their new game exclusive to the Epic Games Store for the first sixth months of release.
And the company is now complementing that offer by pledging to give developers – in a scheme it’s calling Now On Epic – a six-month 100% revenue cut for bringing over games “currently live on another third-party PC store or included in a third-party subscription service available on another third-party PC store”. Games must have been released on other storefronts before 31st October this year, and after six months of being on the Epic Games Store, revenue reverts to Epic’s standard 88%/12% split.
The catch, such as it is, is that games must be transferred in bulk; if a developer has more than six games on a third-party store or third-party subscription service, at least three of them must be brought to the Epic Games Store. In instances where a developer has less than three games, all of them must be bought to Epic’s store.
This latest bid at bolstering interest in the Epic Games Store comes just weeks after the company laid off around 830 employes – roughly 16% of it total workforce – with Epic CEO Tim Sweeney admitting at the time, “For a while now, we’ve been spending way more money than we earn”.
