One of the big features of the new Epic Store is that it promises developers it will take a significantly smaller chunk of change from game sales profits. Currently, Epic takes 12% for distributing games rather than the 30% that Steam currently does. According to Bulkhead Interactive CEO Joe Brammer, his studio's game, Battalion 1944, would have seen the company earn an additional $350,000 if it could have launched on Epic instead of Steam.
Brammer believes that this significant uptick in profits coming back to developers can make all the difference in the world to smaller studios.
To quantify just what an additional $350,000 means to an independent developer, such a figure is equivalent to months of funding and running a studio; that's a decent marketing campaign to bring in more players, an esports events and modding prizes, hiring talented new staff, or bringing in community managers to engage with the people paying the money. It's huge.
While it may seem that Brammer is advocating abandoning Steam, he actually is not. "Steam is good. Yes, it definitely has issues, but on the whole it works." That comes with a caveat, however, in that Brammer believes that "review bombing" has been used to "inflict damage" on certain games and has become more of a "down-vote system" rather that "a simple review score".
Due to this, Brammer believes that "Epic can take what Valve has done and improve on it -- even beyond the aforementioned revenue share upgrade".
Read the full post over at GamesIndustry.biz.