After a major victory over Apple in court earlier this week, Epic Games announced some of the upcoming changes the Epic Games Store is aiming to attract more developers to use the platform, while also slightly provoking Apple in the process.
The first change is the decrease in the share of Epic's share from developer revenue on its store platform.Currently, Epic draws a 12% share of sales from the store platform, which is significantly lower than most other platforms: for example, Steam draws a 30% share of the top 10 million dollars in developer revenue, 25% of the portions above $10 million, and 20% of the portions above $50 million.Under the new plan, Epic will not charge a share of the first $1 million in revenue per application per year, and will only withdraw a 12% share as usual.
This means a lot to smaller independent developers.In 2018, Valve drew some criticism when adjusting its revenue share model, which is obviously more conducive to large publishers and hugely successful games; while Epic's changes are from another perspective, bringing benefits to game developers who are not very successful.
In addition to adjusting the revenue share ratio, Epic will also add a new feature to enable developers to open their own "online store" on the Epic game store.So why do developers want to do this?
"These outlets can offer players an out-of-app purchase option, which is a more cost-effective option than in-app purchases, as Apple, Google and some other platforms charge too high fees when it comes to in-app purchases. With new legal rulings, developers will be able to guide players to jump from games to outlets for digital purchases on any allowed platform, including on iOS platforms in the EU and the US."
The in-app purchase issue was the core focus of Epic's legal lawsuit with Apple five years ago: Epic decided not to pay Apple's 30% share for Fortnite purchases and added its own payment processing option to the Fortnite app, and Apple's reaction was completely expected.
Epic lost that lawsuit, but after five years and some unexpected twists, it eventually won a compromise: Apple has been explicitly told that it cannot prevent iOS app developers from linking to off-app online payment forms, nor can it charge commissions for off-app purchases.Now, Epic opens a door for all developers to sell their own products without paying Apple’s high fees.
To further increase your appeal, any purchases made through Epic outlets will receive 5% Epic bonus points that can be used to make other purchases on the Epic store.Although this is not a big amount, if you are planning to buy a lot of things and the choice is to get a 5% reward or nothing, well, in my opinion, it is obviously an easy choice to make.
Epic's updated revenue sharing model and outlet functions will be officially launched sometime in June.
