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PayPalEpic Games are once again trying to entice more game developers to not only ship same-day on the Epic Games Store, but to use Unreal Engine too.
Announced during Unreal Fest Seattle 2024 is the new "Launch Everywhere with Epic" program. A deal for game developers and publishers that use Unreal Engine, to get a reduced royalty cut from 5% to 3.5%. This reduced cut will apply to all platforms and all stores (including Steam and consoles), as long as they ship their games at least same-day on the Epic Games Store. This new royalty model will begin January 1st, 2025.
This is on top of previous exclusive deals like Epic First Run, that can give developers 100% of the revenue for 6 months before going back to their standard 88%/12% split.
No doubt something that will entice more developers to get their games shipped on the Epic Store, and likely Unreal Engine too since the royalty fee is quite low. It's also another way for them to get more developers to release on their new mobile stores too, since developers also get 100% of net revenue if they use their own in-app payment solution (or 88% using Epic's).
The Epic Games Store still has no official Linux desktop or Steam Deck support, so you'll need community-built software like Heroic Games and Lutris to work with it.
Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
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Tim Sweeney is the best comedian of this century 
Do you remember when he said "Installing Linux is sort of the equivalent of moving to Canada when one doesn’t like US political trends. Nope, we’ve got to fight for the freedoms we have today, where we have them today."? True to his words, he created a new store so that editors could move to Canada instead of fighting for their freedoms on Steam :D And now, after all the Epic exclusives, including the ones whose release was already planned on Steam, them dare saying "Launch Everywhere" ??? It's just plain mockery.
I'm by no means a Steam fan person. Actually I tried to avoid Steam as much as I could. I was focusing on Humble Bundle and GOG. When HB was dedicated to porting games on Linux and against DRM. But I had to recognize that Valve did a lot, for Linux, and gaming in general.
1. They did fund DXVK and Wine development.
2. Even If I don't like their DRM, it was much worse before Steam. Do you remember games with 5 activations, no more?
3. They showed that gaming handhelds can be successful with Deck.
4. Even after many years Alyx is still the best game on VR.
5. Their client have been supporting Linux for a decade while competitors often don't support Linux at all or very badly. Note: Itch has a very good Linux support too!.
6. Steam sales were one of the few ways for many to get games at affordable price.
There are many things to say against Valve, starting from their cut being way to high. But saying they do nothing is just not true. Especially if you compare Steam to Epic! Comparing with GOG and Itch could be understandable. GOG has the merit to be against DRM and Itch is the platform for very indie games. There are reasons to love these two stores. But Epic? :D
Last edited by TheBard on 2 October 2024 at 6:07 pm UTC
Do you remember when he said "Installing Linux is sort of the equivalent of moving to Canada when one doesn’t like US political trends. Nope, we’ve got to fight for the freedoms we have today, where we have them today."? True to his words, he created a new store so that editors could move to Canada instead of fighting for their freedoms on Steam :D And now, after all the Epic exclusives, including the ones whose release was already planned on Steam, them dare saying "Launch Everywhere" ??? It's just plain mockery.
QuoteMeanwhile in Steam-Land: Yet another Steam Deck Verified game gets unplayable.
It's funny to see how Epic Games apparently puts it all into their platform while Valve just waits & hopes for the best.
Must be very hard for you guys to see the "enemy" do exactly what you expect from Valve.
I'm by no means a Steam fan person. Actually I tried to avoid Steam as much as I could. I was focusing on Humble Bundle and GOG. When HB was dedicated to porting games on Linux and against DRM. But I had to recognize that Valve did a lot, for Linux, and gaming in general.
1. They did fund DXVK and Wine development.
2. Even If I don't like their DRM, it was much worse before Steam. Do you remember games with 5 activations, no more?
3. They showed that gaming handhelds can be successful with Deck.
4. Even after many years Alyx is still the best game on VR.
5. Their client have been supporting Linux for a decade while competitors often don't support Linux at all or very badly. Note: Itch has a very good Linux support too!.
6. Steam sales were one of the few ways for many to get games at affordable price.
There are many things to say against Valve, starting from their cut being way to high. But saying they do nothing is just not true. Especially if you compare Steam to Epic! Comparing with GOG and Itch could be understandable. GOG has the merit to be against DRM and Itch is the platform for very indie games. There are reasons to love these two stores. But Epic? :D
Last edited by TheBard on 2 October 2024 at 6:07 pm UTC
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Quoting: LoudTechieValve doesn't just wait they put millions of dollars into proton to get games playable on the SteamDeck and it seems to work.Great to hear. Please provide the sources with the actual numbers. And while you're at it: Please provide the number of actually supported games (by the developers, not by Valve).
Quoting: LoudTechieAlso they launched a bunch of other intiatives for it, like souping up the proprietary NVIDIA drivers, Gamescope, KDE and MESA sponsorships, the verified rating system, DXVK sponsorship, Vulkan(they're one of the founders of the Khronos project) and the SteamMachine.Which of these projects directly help the developers of the games? They mainly benefit Valve & their own operating system. DXVK & Proton are the only projects which would help but it's obvious that it's not enough.
Quoting: LoudTechieI fully understand that Windows gamers and/or developers might see Valve as a dangerous imposing passive and unmoving force, because Valve earned that reputation in the Windows space, but in the Linux gaming space we benefit quite a lot from them.I'm talking of getting the actual game developers to provide actual support for Steam Deck / Proton / Linux. What are they doing this way?
Quoting: LoudTechieFor Valve this is probably illegal and ineffective.If it was simply illegal, nobody would be able to do it. Bundling the Index with Half-Life: Alyx would be illegal. Microsoft tying Office & Teams is illegal because they have a monopoly with Office, putting any Teams competitor to a huge disadvantage to sell their alternative. That's not the case with the Steam Deck / Proton / Linux (they could bind it to Proton / Linux in general if we are saying they are market leader for PC based handheld devices).
illegal:
Valve is big enough that anti-trust law applies to them and bundling services for a discount is probably a form of "tying" and thus illegal(ask Microsoft about teams and office).
Besides: They're already lowering their cut if the revenue surpasses a certain amount. This can easily be argued as illegal since they're forcing small studios to exclusively release on Steam to avoid splitting the revenue. So no, I seriously doubt any anti-trust law considerations.
Quoting: LoudTechieIneffective:Steam machines were a complete disaster & failure, so that's not comparable.
they tried bribing developers to support Linux for the Steam machine...
Quoting: TheBardTim Sweeney is the best comedian of this century […]Funny. You have really never heard of Nintendo?
3. They showed that gaming handhelds can be successful with Deck.
Quoting: TheBard[…] There are many things to say against Valve, starting from their cut being way to high. But saying they do nothing is just not true. Especially if you compare Steam to Epic! Comparing with GOG and Itch could be understandable. GOG has the merit to be against DRM and Itch is the platform for very indie games. There are reasons to love these two stores. But Epic? :DYou fail to provide a single point which shows what Valve is directly doing to entice developers to officially support the Steam Deck / Proton / Linux.
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