Now, that’s a pretty good deal if I don’t say so myself. It’s not unheard of that some corporations go to war with each other in this dog-eat-dog gaming world, but Epic Games has been offering developers better terms for their games, offering developers 88% in revenue, instead of the 60% like Steam, according to Gameinformer and Polygon. The controversial issue behind Epic Games is that it has been offering exclusive deals to developers to not put their content in the Steam Store and only their own, providing better margins for the developers to make more money. For those of you who are unfamiliar with Epic Games, it released high-grossing games, such as Fortnite, which drove revenue over $2.5B in 2018 with over 250M active players, growing Epic Games closer in size to Steam’s creator, Valve. In the first week of August, Epic Games Inc offered Wlad Marhulets, the sole developer behind Unfold Games, for Darq to be exclusively distributed in the Epic store and not on Steam, according to PCGamer. Marhulets also shared a screenshot that proves how the Epic Games representative was only interested in adding the game to the store as an exclusive.Before I get into the details of Darq gameplay, I wanted to provide some interesting insight into the game’s distribution drama. I wish the Epic Store would allow indie games to be sold there non-exclusively, as they do with larger, still unreleased games (Cyberpunk 2077), so players can enjoy what they want: a choice. I was happy to work with GOG to bring the game to their platform. A lot of people requested that DARQ is made available on GOG. It was important to me to give players what they wanted: options.Unfold Games (my studio) is here to stay, and DARQ is just the beginning. But it’s a fair price to pay for establishing an ongoing trust between my studio and its customers. Will I make less money on Steam than I would have by accepting the financial guarantee from the Epic Store? Probably. Their refund policy has always been the industry standard, and their delivery promise was always fulfilled to the best of their ability. Now, Amazon is one of the biggest companies in the world, and it’s because customers know Amazon will always be on their side. They had made many decisions in the past that were extremely pro-customer, even if it meant leaving money on the table (for which they got a lot of criticism from Wall Street). Apart from the moral issues involved, would it be worth it if given a large sum of money? Consider Amazon’s history - the company remained unproffitable for many years by ALWAYS putting their customers first. Pulling the game off Steam, especially so close to the release date, would surely make a lot of DARQ fans unhappy. A lot of Steam users added DARQ to their wishlist and patiently waited for its release date for almost a year. DARQ was listed on Steam since late 2018.When thinking long term, however, this was an easy & obvious decision to make (in my case). Turning down the Epic exclusivity offer might have been a foolish decision in the short term, considering the amount of money that might have been involved. I woud like for my customers to have confidence that my word means something, especially when making announcement as crucial as release date / platform. I had just announced DARQ release date on Steam - pulling the game off Steam a few days after Steam release date announcement would forever ruin the credibility of my studio. But although I’m a first time developer, I’m very serious about working in this industry for a very long time. I like money, and getting some upfront payment on top of guaranteed revenue sounds great.In a lengthy blog post published on Medium earlier today, Marhulets shared the three main reasons that led him to this choice.
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