In retaliation to policies from platforms like Steam and Apple’s App Store, Epic First Run aims to attract new releases from small studios. This opens the doors to exclusivity for any developer with a new game and protects them from having to pay hefty royalty fees.
Tim Sweeney created The Epic Games Store in 2018 as an alternative digital storefront for games by AAA developers. Using the financial success of Fortnite, Epic has been able to pay publishers in advance to launch titles on its storefront. If not a permanent exclusive, then at least temporarily.
Over the years, this strategy has worked in magnetizing some of the biggest franchises in the industry over the years, including Kingdom Hearts, Borderlands 3, Control, and Hitman 3. The company has taken things to an extreme, spending over $1 billion to acquire and maintain exclusives as of May 2021. This is in spite of the fact it has not turned additional profits doing so.
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Focusing on a strategy that embraces exclusives has proven time and time again to be the most financially rewarding path in the games industry. Sadly though, it continues to alienate consumers and force them to use systems and platforms they would prefer not to.