Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney Says “Exclusives Work”

Epic Games

Despite it only being launched around 8 months ago, the Epic Games Store has already achieved some pretty remarkable things. They have, for example, started (slowly but surely) building an impressive catalogue of games, have already held a sales event, and have been able to secure a number of exclusive releases with more on the way.

Despite this, however, there are huge parts of the PC gaming community that absolutely detest the company. Specifically for those exclusive game releases that did (or will) decide to go down the Epic Games Store route. In fact, the backlash for Shenmue III was so intense that the developers are said to be formally reconsidering the decision.

In a report via PCGamesN, however, Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney is adamant. Put simply, “exclusives work”!

Do They Work?

Speaking in an interview, Tim Sweeney said that Epic “believes exclusives are the only strategy that will change the 70/30 status quo at a large enough scale to permanently affect the whole game industry.”

“This leads to the strategy of exclusives which, though unpopular with dedicated Steam gamers, do work, as established by the major publisher storefronts and by the key Epic Games store releases compared to their former Steam revenue projections and their actual console sales.”

Is He Right?

As much as many of our readers would disagree, largely we think he’s right. Ultimately it just boils down to competition and frankly Steam had far too long without any genuine alternative for developers. As such, someone coming along offering much lower commission rates was always bound to do relatively well.

No, the Epic Games Store isn’t perfect. Neither, however, was Steam when it launched around 15 years ago. In fact, Steam was bloody awful when it first launched on PC and, I suspect, that sooner or later, people will come around in the same way and, sadly, exclusives will help make that happen.

What do you think? Do you love or hate Epic Games? – Let us know in the comments!