In some of today’s most “you what, mate?” news, Epic Games apparently paid Control developer Remedy $10.5 million for PC exclusivity.
A financial report from Digital Bros (in Italian, with a translation was provided by gamedaily.biz) indicates that Remedy and publisher 505 Games got a deal of 9.49 million euros in bringing Control to the Epic Games Store. That’s $10.49 million, which was then divided between the two parties, with 505 taking 45% of that total and the larger sum of 55% going to Remedy. This deal is part of a larger exchange between 505 Games and Epic that will also see the upcoming sci-fi exploration game Journey to the Savage Planet released exclusively on the Epic Games Store.
We also know that these funds are considered an advance on the 88% of sales revenue through the Epic Games Store. This information comes courtesy of Ooblets developer Glumberland. In a lengthy post from August 2019, developer Ben Wasser explained how Epic’s guaranteed minimum and advance payment structure helped keep the studio afloat and assuage financial anxieties that developers typically face.
“Because Epic doesn’t yet have the same market share as their competitors, they offered us a minimum guarantee on sales that would match what we’d be wanting to earn if we were just selling Ooblets across all the stores,” Wasser said. “That takes a huge burden of uncertainty off of us because now we know that no matter what, the game won’t fail and we won’t be forced to move back in with our parents (but we do love and appreciate you, parents!).”
This paints a clearer picture of how Epic intends to rapidly kickstart its (currently feature-light) storefront to combat Steam. It’s still pretty ridiculous to see, but with Fortnite around, nobody can burn money to make public statements like Epic can. Control and the recent Borderlands 3 seem to be working out for them, but we’ll have to see where their conspicuous approach to exclusivity deals will get them in a few years.