The CEO of games giant Epic Tim Sweeney has said that its strategy for exclusives on its storefront, while not popular, is proving to be successful.
Replying to criticism on Twitter (below), the exec said that its policy of snapping up games exclusively for its own marketplace is what will change the current state of the industry, namely the 70/30 revenue share employed by long-term platforms.
Sweeney admits that the strategy is "unpopular", but that it'll serve to convince platforms like Steam that they need to reduce the slice of the pie they take. The exec also points out that the 30 per cent piece that Valve takes on game sales often translates to more than the developer put into the project to start with.
In the past, the Epic boss has said that the games firm will stop its exclusivity policy if Valve brings a more competitive revenue sharing scheme to Steam.
Mr Sweeney also said that despite their clout and size, publishers including EA, Activision Blizzard and Ubisoft haven't even reached five per cent of Steam's scale.
This question gets to the core of Epic’s strategy for competing with dominant storefronts. We believe exclusives are the only strategy that will change the 70/30 status quo at a large enough scale to permanently affect the whole game industry.
— Tim Sweeney (@TimSweeneyEpic) June 25, 2019
