Epic pays the developer for X units sold before selling anything. Basically guarantee the developer to make at least that much sold. The developer still stands

Epic pays the developer for X units sold before selling anything. Basically guarantee the developer to make at least that much sold. The developer still stands to make extra buck if the game sells really well (when selling more then those X units Epic paid them beforehand) This is great for smaller devs as you basically have 0 advertising budget and rely on worth of mouth for your game to be a success or not. So you can take guaranteed money and pay yourself (and your employees) or take the gamble and hope your game sells well. Also Epic takes smaller cut then Valve does on Steam. (12% vs 30%) Also these exclusives to Epic are timed. So after a couple months the developer is free to publish their game on Steam/GOG/Windows Store/whatever PC platform (Epic store exclusivity does not apply for consoles)