Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney had laid down the gauntlet in the company's battle with Steam in which it has been gobbling up exclusive rights to games left, right and centre. Epic's CEO said that if Valve offers a revenue share for developers on their platform which matches Epic's share, then the company will stop signing agreements which keeps games off Steam's platform.
"If Steam committed to a permanent 88% revenue share for all developers and publishers without major strings attached, Epic would hastily organize a retreat from exclusives (while honoring our partner commitments) and consider putting our own games on Steam," Sweeney tweeted. "Such a move would be a glorious moment in the history of PC gaming, and would have a sweeping impact on other platforms for generations to come."
Since its inception, the Epic games store has made a habit of gathering up high-profile independent and even Triple-A games away from Steam with exclusivity agreements. Large titles such as Borderlands 3, Metro Exodus and even Ubisoft as a studio has started moving it's PC releases over onto Epic's store.
It hasn't all been plain sailing however for the Epic store despite all this. When games that were sold on Steam moved themselves to Epic during a pre-order phase, it caused anger amongst gamers with users 'review bombing' games that had sequels set to launch on Epic's store. Previous Metro games and even the Borderlands series were hit by the 'review bomb' after it was announced they would be moving both Metro Exodus and Borderlands 3 to Epic respectively.
However, in a fairly ironic twist of fate, this act of review bombing has only hardened some studio executive's view on Steam with Gearbox studio head Randy Pitchford saying "Ironically, that this misuse is possible and that Steam has no interest in correcting this misuse makes me kind of happy about 2K's decision and makes me want to reconsider Gearbox Publishing's current posture on the platform,".
