As part of its strategy to compete with Steam, Epic Games has spent hundreds of millions of dollars securing exclusive releases on its digital store.
Over the past couple of years, many popular titles have been exclusive to the Epic Games Store on PC. The platform also regularly gave away free games to anyone with an active account.
It was known that Epic spent a lot of money securing timed exclusives but, until now, it wasn’t clear exactly how much money was involved in the deals.
A PC Gamer report reveals that legal documents produced for the dispute between Epic and Apple show that the company spent $ 444 million on exclusive deals in 2020 alone. These deals ensure that games remain off Steam for a year as they come. released on the Epic Games Store.
But as part of the exclusivity agreements, Epic makes a guaranteed minimum payment to third-party developers regardless of whether the game sells enough to cover it. For example, the report notes that Epic spent $ 10.45 million alone for the exclusive right to sell the PC version of Remedy’s Control.
And due to advances like this for third-party developers, Apple estimates that the Epic Games Store will report a loss of at least $ 330 million.
Fortunately, Fortnite’s massive revenue has given Epic the opportunity to try and secure a prominent position in the market, even if it’s still somewhat behind Valve’s Steam.
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