Epic Games Blows More Than Half Its Revenue On Exclusives

The Epic Games Store reportedly spends more than half its annual revenue on its exclusives-centric approach, new court documents reveal.

As spotted by PC Gamer, the Epic v Apple court case has unearthed some new documents, including a year-end financial report by Epic Games showing just how much money they spend securing exclusives to get players off of Steam and on to the Epic Games Store.

Of the Epic Games USD 700 Million of revenue in 2020, the company reportedly spent USD 444 Million on its third-party exclusives. However, these third party games would only go back to generate USD 265 million for the Epic Games Store in turn.

The main way they do this is by offering developers an advance, calling it a “Minimum Guarantee”. Basically even if your game doesn’t actually hit a projected number of sales, Epic Games will pay you as if you did. Famously, Epic had spend USD 10.45 million for one of the early high-profile acquisitions by the store, Control.

Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney has responded to the reports, saying it doesn’t matter that the store is losing money, because it’s getting exposure. He posted up an infographic saying that the money spent was rather “invested” into a better platform in the future. He also called out Apple for trying to spin the story of Epic Games losing money with the emotive phrase “losing money”.

Expect more of this kind of news as Apple and Epic Games legal battle goes to trial in May, as both Apple and Epic bring up reasons to sway the arguments in their favor. Epic and Apple have been fighting over Epic’s right to break the App Store Terms of Service, despite explicitly agreeing to them when they first opened shop.

Epic Games has been trying to brand this as a consumer rights issue, calling Apple’s 30% cut anti-consumer despite the fact Apple no longer takes a 30% cut unless you make over a certain amount in overall revenue.