Tim Sweeney: Storefront battle will be won with developer support

Though Epic Games has promised a number of consumer features for its store that users might recognize from other storefronts such as Steam, it seems that ultimately the company doesn't consider those features to be the tipping point for how it might gain dominance over its competitors.

Rather, as Epic CEO Tim Sweeney told MCV in an interview, the company sees developer support as the more important factor.

"We're giving game developers and publishers the store business model that we've always wanted as developers ourselves," he said.

"[The storefront model is] nearly perfect for consumers already...There is no hope of displacing a dominant storefront solely by adding marginally more store features or a marginally better install experience. These battles will be won on the basis of game supply, consumer prices, and developer revenue sharing."

Since it launched, the Epic Games store has prioritized courting developers with an 88/12 revenue share model and a Support-a-Creator program that gives smaller developers more access to content creators. Sweeney also confirmed to MCV that Epic had offered additional financial incentives to developers to publish games on the store - something the company was able to do with ease given Fortnite's success.

Though the store is currently heavily curated, as it opens its doors to more games later this year the company plans to continue focusing on making its storefront a developer-friendly place.

That doesn't mean it will be devoid of customer features. Epic director of publishing strategy Sergey Galyonkin has confirmed that staples such as achievements, cloud saves, reviews, and social features would be implemented down the line.

For the record: A previous version of this story had Epic's revenue share incorrectly as 88/22. It has been amended above.