Following its
significant legal win against Apple
Earlier this week, Epic Games announced forthcoming modifications to the Epic Games Store designed to attract additional developers to utilize it, all while giving Apple a slight nudge as well.
The initial modification involves decreasing the financial share taken by Epic from developers through its digital store. Currently, Epic retains only 12% of revenue generated from sales within their storefront—a rate considerably below industry standards. To put this into perspective, Steam charges 30% for earnings up to $10 million, reduces slightly to 25% thereafter until surpassing another milestone at $50 million where it drops further to 20%. In contrast, under the revised policy, Epic plans to waive all fees entirely on the first $1 million annual income per application before reverting back to collecting its standard commission of 12%.
This is quite significant for smaller, independent developers.
took some heat
When it modified its revenue sharing model in 2018 due to favoring large publishers and blockbuster titles, Epic’s change approaches the issue from an opposite angle, providing benefits to developers whose games do not achieve massive popularity.
In addition to the revised revenue sharing model, Epic is introducing a new capability that allows developers to create their own “webshops” within the Epic Games Store. The question arises: Why might they wish to do this?
Epic stated these online stores provide players with alternatives for purchasing items outside of apps, offering a more economical choice compared to in-app purchases, which often come with excessively high charges imposed by platforms like Apple, Google, and others. With recent legal decisions now effective, developers will have permission to direct players towards making digital acquisitions via webstores across various platforms such as iOS within both the European Union and the United States.
The Epic Games Store will charge nothing on the initial $1,000,000 in payments processed annually per game (compared to Apple’s 15%), with a rate of 12% thereafter (versus Apple’s 30%). Next month, we’ll introduce EGS Webshops for external purchases as an option alongside in-app buys. https://t.co/yTufyZbiqRMay 1, 2025
Five years ago, the central point of contention in the lawsuit between Epic and Apple was over in-app purchases. Epic chose not to comply with Apple’s 30% commission on Fortnite transactions and implemented an alternative payment system within the Fortnite application, which led to this conflict with Apple.
reacted entirely predictably
.
Epic lost that fight, but after about five years and several unforeseen turns of events, it has ultimately
won itself a compromise
: Apple has been told unequivocally that it can’t stop iOS app developers from linking to out-of-app web payment forms, and can’t charge commission fees on those out-of-app purchases. Now Epic is opening the door to all developers to sell their stuff without paying Apple’s big fees.
To make things even sweeter, all purchases made via Epic’s online stores will receive a 5% bonus.
Epic Rewards
This can be used for other purchases on the Epic Store. The sum might not be large, but if you’re making multiple buys either way, choosing to receive 5% instead of getting nothing at all seems like an obvious decision to make.
Epic has scheduled their revised revenue sharing model and webshop launch for activation at some point in June.
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