Epic Games incentive offers developers 100% revenue for game exclusivity

Epic Games is offering third-party developers 100 percent of revenue for six months, in exchange for game exclusivity on its storefront.

Epic's newly announced First Run program is an opt in scheme. If a developer chooses to participate in the initiative, they will receive 100 percent revenue for six months.

Once this period of exclusivity ends, the split will revert back to the store's original set up of 88 percent going to developers, and 12 percent going to Epic.

First Run will be available to developers "of any scale", Epic has said, and will grant participants a number of perks designed to increase overall exposure for their product. This includes benefiting from inclusion in "relevant store campaigns" such as sales and events, as well as "exclusive badging, homepage placements, and dedicated collections".

Epic's First Run program is available to both developers and publishers with registered Epic Games developer accounts and "eligible products" releasing any time after 16th October, 2023.

In Epic's words, an eligible product is: "A new release game or app which has not been previously released on another third-party PC store or included in a subscription service available on another third-party PC store."

The company stated that any games or apps that already have an exclusivity deal in place with the Epic Games Store are not eligible for the First Run program.

All that being said, developers can be a part of First Run and still simultaneously release their products on a first-party store or website, with Epic stating: "Products in the Epic First Run program can also be released simultaneously on publishers' and developers' own stores or launchers with direct sales, sale of an Epic digital redemption code, or integration with our keyless redemption program."

Sharing the news on X (formally Twitter), Epic boss Tim Sweeny said with this new scheme, "everyone wins".

"Devs earn more money, Epic reaches new customers," he wrote.

As a little aside, in the replies to this post, Sweeney said a "big development effort" is currently underway to "optimise" the Epic store.

"It's roughly doubled performance over the past year but it has further to go," Sweeny shared in response to a question about the store's overall experience.

For more on exclusivity, our Tom just sat down with Phil Spencer to chat more about what's in store for Xbox. You can read more here.