Epic Games has announced a new exclusivity program called Epic First Run for developers as a drive to keep PC games on the Epic Store. The scheme sees developers get 100% of revenue share from the marketplace for the first six months if they sign their game to the store and no other third-party PC store.
There’s also good news for current publishers, the scheme also covers existing games which are releasing on or after 16 October. So any upcoming Epic Game Store exclusives will be able to benefit from the limited promotion.
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Keep in mind that this scheme isn’t a permanent incentive. Epic Games is only offering this to developers for a limited time and the 100% incentives only last for the first six months of sales. After that, the split will then go back to 88% for the developer and 12% for Epic Games.
Game developers have quite a lot of freedom with this scheme. Epic Games says they can even release their products on other third-party stores such as Green Man Gaming as long as the keys are for the Epic Games Store. By the sound of things, they can do anything they want just not sell games on Steam or the Battle.net launcher.
“Participating products in the Epic First Run program will be presented to those users on-store with new exclusive badging, homepage placements, and dedicated collections. In addition, products will be featured in relevant store campaigns including sales, events, and editorial as applicable. Once a product joins the program, it will benefit from continued exposure throughout its Epic First Run.”
Epic Games has always had quite a firm grip on PC exclusives. Apart from Blizzard which created its own platform for game launches, Epic Games has signed on to some big titles that have remained on the platform since launch.
Some of the year’s biggest games are also exclusive to the Epic Game Store including the likes of Alan Wake 2.
Source: Epic Games
