Epic Games announced its new First Run programme – an initiative that provides participants with 100 per cent of their net revenue for six months of exclusivity on the Epic Games Store.
For developers and publishers with registered Epic Games developer accounts that are working on eligible products launching on or after October 16, they will benefit from this boosted net revenue from user spending as well as “continued exposure” to potential customers.
Citing the 68million monthly active users of the Epic Games Store, those who sign up for the Epic First Run program will see their games given “new exclusive badging, homepage placements, and dedicated collections”.
Furthermore, their products will be “featured in relevant store campaigns including sales, events, and editorial as applicable”. On the other side of the arrangement, the company stressed that the developer “must promote their products early and often with their target audience”.
Epic First Run also allows developers to release their products on its publisher’s stores or launchers as a direct sale to customers. Additionally, if the developer releases their game through a competitor, then the exclusivity period is nullified from that day forward and the revenue split reverts to the standard.
Once those six months are over, then developers are able to place their products on other third-party platforms and the revenue split shrinks to 88 per cent.
“It has never been easier to bring your games to the Epic Games Store,” said the company. “In March this year, we launched our self-service publishing tools to streamline the onboarding and release process. The tools allow developers to register, set up, test and distribute their games all directly through the Epic Developer Portal.”
In other gaming news, Phil Spencer said that the feature parity policy for Xbox launches has led to delays like Baldur’s Gate 3, but it is still a priority for Microsoft.