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While some outlets have praised the Epic's new storefront for their more generous developer revenue cut, others have been criticizing the new Steam competitor. One particularly nasty thread popped up on the /r/pcgaming subreddit yesterday, claiming that the Epic Store is "literally spyware" with a draconian TOS and a Chinese parent company that cares nothing for the privacy of its users. Hate is plentiful on the internet, but this particular post managed to shoot into /r/all with over 27,000 upvotes, prompting Epic Game's CEO to post a response with some interesting info. Among other things, Tim elaborated on the deals behind Epic Store exclusives, saying "they're a result of some combination of marketing commitments, development funding, or revenue guarantees." This implies that Epic is working with their storefront listings more closely than Valve, who tend to take a hands-off approach. Tim also reaffirmed that Tencent is only a minority investor in Epic, and that they "do not have any sort of access to our customer data."
All developers recognize this because their business are being crushed under the weight of these increasing store taxes. This is why devs have been super enthusiastic about the Epic store. For users, I get that it's yet another launcher and if you have Steam installed you'd prefer to just use it. But if you want way better games to be built in the future, then please recognize what good this store can do. Steam takes 30% and Epic takes 12%. That's an 18% difference, and most devs make WAY less than an 18% profit margin - so this can be the difference between being able to fund a new game and going bankrupt!
All developers recognize this because their business are being crushed under the weight of these increasing store taxes. This is why devs have been super enthusiastic about the Epic store. For users, I get that it's yet another launcher and if you have Steam installed you'd prefer to just use it. But if you want way better games to be built in the future, then please recognize what good this store can do. Steam takes 30% and Epic takes 12%. That's an 18% difference, and most devs make WAY less than an 18% profit margin - so this can be the difference between being able to fund a new game and going bankrupt!