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I think it is commendable that Epic used some of this profit to change their Unreal Engine Marketplace rates in favour of the developers. Similar to their store

I think it is commendable that Epic used some of this profit to change their Unreal Engine Marketplace rates in favour of the developers. Similar to their store that is mentioned in the article, the revenue split is now 88/12. This change will be applied retroactively to all past transactions [1]. My understanding is the split was previously 70/30 as common in other online stores—those should be some hefty payouts for some developers. In my opinion this is going above and beyond and would make me feel good about supporting Epic through purchase of cosmetics in Fortnite if I played the game, for example. EDIT: I previously mistakenly referred to the UE Marketplace as store, which is now at best misleading since they did launch a proper game store last month. Thanks to jsnell for catching this. [1] https://www.unrealengine.com/en-US/blog/epic-announces-unreal-engine-marketplace-88-12-revenue-share https://www.unrealengine.com/en-US/blog/epic-announces-unrea...

ehsankia 8y ago
I'm confused, Epic just launched their store this month. What games are these "previous transactions" for? Do you have a specific list of games that sold with the previous 70/30 cut, and for how long? EDIT: From what I remember, the only games on the Epic launcher were Unreal Tournament, Paragon, Fortnite and Shadow Complex.
- jsnell 8y ago
  The OP was talking about the Unreal Engine Marketplace (for selling game assets to developers), not about the Epic Games store (for selling finished games to players). I see the source of your confusion though, since the article was never talking about the UE Marketplace.
  - Cu3PO42 8y ago
    It appears I didn't parse the article correctly myself. Thanks for catching this, I'll edit the OP to be clear on this.
a13n 8y ago
Eh, that move is definitely nice for developers, but it's still self-serving. They're in an uphill battle against steam's moat, and increasing rates is a way of attracting more developers.
- MattRix 8y ago
  Sure, but even going to 25 or 20 percent would have been big. To go all the way down to 12% is absurd (though as a game dev I'm certainly not complaining!)
- Cu3PO42 8y ago
  The UE Marketplace is targeted at developers only and sells assets and such for use in UE games. I was not aware that Steam is competing in that area at all and a cursory search didn't yield any such results. Of course other marketplaces selling assets exist, but I am not aware that one has a dominant market position that Epic are trying hard to surpass. Please do let me know if that is, in fact, the case. Or are you implying that better rates in the Marketplace will also make it more likely for developers to publish their games on the Epic Store (disregarding the better rates there)?
  - mtgx 8y ago
    They are talking about the Steam-competing store Epic launched recently: https://www.epicgames.com/store/ https://www.epicgames.com/store/ It's pretty empty now but I'll be shocked if it doesn't have thousands of games within the next 3 years.
    - huhtenberg 8y ago
      The store is closely curated by Epic, and that - the quality of game selection - was their main pitch for the gamers. It's still possible that they will exhaust a pool of good games and start listing random junk for $100 like Steam does, but that's not likely to happen that quickly.
      - kbenson 8y ago
swebs 8y ago
>I think it is commendable that Epic used some of this profit to change their Unreal Engine Marketplace rates in favour of the developers Now if only they made the marketplace actually available to developers. There is literally no way for me to buy assets from my Linux workstation. They disabled the ability to buy from their webpage to push people through their launcher, but they refuse to release it on Linux for some reason. I guess they don't mind the missed sales? It's pretty much the reason why I ditched it for Unity.
- leetrout 8y ago
  My workstation is now win 10 to run UE4 and use the marketplace and ubuntu in VMWare for everything on the backend for this very reason. There are a couple hacks out there to get your assets after you have bought them but you still have to buy them from the windows marketplace.
username3 8y ago
Epic can do 88/12 without gift cards. After paying retailers for selling Steam gift cards, Valve gets less than 30.
- Cu3PO42 8y ago
  Of course they loose some money on the gift cards, but I highly doubt it's anywhere close to 18% of the value for most retailers. I was not able to find a public source on any numbers here, but I asked a friend working at a large 8-letter games store and he mentioned figures in the range of 5%. Furthermore I am not speaking of the recently launched game store, but the UE Marketplace that sells assets targeted at developers. As mentioned in a reply to a sibling of yours, I am not aware that Steam or other large game distribution platforms are competing in this market. Hence I am not sure why their rates are relevant here.
  - username3 8y ago
    Retailers discount Apple iTunes gift cards 20%.
    - Cu3PO42 8y ago
      This might be a regional thing, but I have never seen iTunes gift cards discounted where I'm from (Germany). What I've seen is that if you buy a gift card at face value, they give you an extra gift card for 10-15% of the value. And I've not once seen such a promotion for any non-iTunes gift card. This approach leads me to assume that that either happens in co-operation with Apple, who are eating the extra cost for the special promotion, or the stores are paying out of their marketing budget for a loss leader. I don't have any experience with the gift card markets in any other country, so things might just be different here. Either way this is all hypotheticals since I still can't find any good hard numbers. EDIT: Of course you also need to take into account that not all sales in the stores are paid for though gift cards.

ehsankia 8y ago

I'm confused, Epic just launched their store this month. What games are these "previous transactions" for? Do you have a specific list of games that sold with the previous 70/30 cut, and for how long? EDIT: From what I remember, the only games on the Epic launcher were Unreal Tournament, Paragon, Fortnite and Shadow Complex.

jsnell 8y ago
The OP was talking about the Unreal Engine Marketplace (for selling game assets to developers), not about the Epic Games store (for selling finished games to players). I see the source of your confusion though, since the article was never talking about the UE Marketplace.
- Cu3PO42 8y ago
  It appears I didn't parse the article correctly myself. Thanks for catching this, I'll edit the OP to be clear on this.

a13n 8y ago

Eh, that move is definitely nice for developers, but it's still self-serving. They're in an uphill battle against steam's moat, and increasing rates is a way of attracting more developers.

MattRix 8y ago
Sure, but even going to 25 or 20 percent would have been big. To go all the way down to 12% is absurd (though as a game dev I'm certainly not complaining!)
Cu3PO42 8y ago
The UE Marketplace is targeted at developers only and sells assets and such for use in UE games. I was not aware that Steam is competing in that area at all and a cursory search didn't yield any such results. Of course other marketplaces selling assets exist, but I am not aware that one has a dominant market position that Epic are trying hard to surpass. Please do let me know if that is, in fact, the case. Or are you implying that better rates in the Marketplace will also make it more likely for developers to publish their games on the Epic Store (disregarding the better rates there)?
- mtgx 8y ago
  They are talking about the Steam-competing store Epic launched recently: https://www.epicgames.com/store/ https://www.epicgames.com/store/ It's pretty empty now but I'll be shocked if it doesn't have thousands of games within the next 3 years.
  - huhtenberg 8y ago
    The store is closely curated by Epic, and that - the quality of game selection - was their main pitch for the gamers. It's still possible that they will exhaust a pool of good games and start listing random junk for $100 like Steam does, but that's not likely to happen that quickly.
    - kbenson 8y ago

swebs 8y ago

>I think it is commendable that Epic used some of this profit to change their Unreal Engine Marketplace rates in favour of the developers Now if only they made the marketplace actually available to developers. There is literally no way for me to buy assets from my Linux workstation. They disabled the ability to buy from their webpage to push people through their launcher, but they refuse to release it on Linux for some reason. I guess they don't mind the missed sales? It's pretty much the reason why I ditched it for Unity.

leetrout 8y ago
My workstation is now win 10 to run UE4 and use the marketplace and ubuntu in VMWare for everything on the backend for this very reason. There are a couple hacks out there to get your assets after you have bought them but you still have to buy them from the windows marketplace.

username3 8y ago

Epic can do 88/12 without gift cards. After paying retailers for selling Steam gift cards, Valve gets less than 30.

Cu3PO42 8y ago
Of course they loose some money on the gift cards, but I highly doubt it's anywhere close to 18% of the value for most retailers. I was not able to find a public source on any numbers here, but I asked a friend working at a large 8-letter games store and he mentioned figures in the range of 5%. Furthermore I am not speaking of the recently launched game store, but the UE Marketplace that sells assets targeted at developers. As mentioned in a reply to a sibling of yours, I am not aware that Steam or other large game distribution platforms are competing in this market. Hence I am not sure why their rates are relevant here.
- username3 8y ago
  Retailers discount Apple iTunes gift cards 20%.
  - Cu3PO42 8y ago
    This might be a regional thing, but I have never seen iTunes gift cards discounted where I'm from (Germany). What I've seen is that if you buy a gift card at face value, they give you an extra gift card for 10-15% of the value. And I've not once seen such a promotion for any non-iTunes gift card. This approach leads me to assume that that either happens in co-operation with Apple, who are eating the extra cost for the special promotion, or the stores are paying out of their marketing budget for a loss leader. I don't have any experience with the gift card markets in any other country, so things might just be different here. Either way this is all hypotheticals since I still can't find any good hard numbers. EDIT: Of course you also need to take into account that not all sales in the stores are paid for though gift cards.