Epic Games is doubling down on its strategy of signing developers to deals to bring their games to the Epic Games Store as either full or timed exclusives.
A spokesperson told PC Gamer that Epic has more exclusives on the way in 2021/2022 than it’s ever had in total. “We have more exclusives coming in the next two years than we have published to date,” a spokesperson said.
PC Gamer estimates that there have been more than 100 titles that have released on the Epic Games Store as exclusives in some form or another since the platform launched in 2018.
The site reported that there are about 21 titles that have been announced as exclusives for the Epic Games Store but haven’t released yet, so it appears there will be many, many more announcements to come in the future to fill the gap.
Some of the upcoming EGS exclusives that we know about include Oddworld Soulstorm, Saturnalia, and The Wolf Among Us 2, as well as the next games from Remedy, Playdead, and genDesign.
In 2020, Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney said Epic’s pursuit of exclusives, while controversial, has been highly successful for Epic. The exclusives have driven a huge amount of revenue for the nascent gaming store and have helped it get off the ground. Sweeney has been open in discussing how Epic will continue to pay for exclusives to continue to eat into Steam’s marketshare and grow its own store.
Even without paying a developer to bring their game exclusively to the Epic Games Store, developers are already incentivized to do so due to the store’s developer-friendly revenue-sharing mode. Epic only takes 12 percent of game sales, giving 88 percent back to the studios. This percentage is much more favorable than than traditional 70/30 revenue split that exists on Steam and other PC and console platforms, as well as iOS.
Another strategy that Epic has employed to help bring people over to the Epic Games Store is to give away games for free-and this nice offer is continuing in 2021.
