The website also features a donation section, where buyers can, and often do, donate more money than the game is priced at. But even this is adjustable as you can set it to 0% or 100%. Itch’s cut is only 10% by default, which is three times lower than Steam’s take. They know not to expect grandiose production value and understand the difficulties of releasing a game as an individual or small studio. The people browsing Itch are entirely supportive of indie game culture. There are no AAA titles present, and that’s the whole point. Other stores like itch.io, GOG, GameJolt, and Humble have smaller audiences and vary in the amount of competition you’ll face, but they are definitely worth considering.įor example, itch.io is a store specifically for indie games. If you do choose to publish on the EGS, check out our guide to releasing games on the Epic store to increase your odds of success. It’s also unknown just how long these offers will be on the table. No one other than the parties involved knows the details. In any case, exclusivity deals are a black box. You’ll want to avoid potentially costly publicity nightmares if you sign an exclusivity deal, especially if this happens later in development. This deal allowed her to sail all the way to a successful launch with an even better game than when she started out. Unsurprisingly, she was offered an EGS exclusivity deal. Having received the Unreal Engine Dev Grant, the launch of her game coincided with the launch of Epic’s store. Otherwise, you’ll simply need to rely on traditional sales from the Epic Games Store.Ī good example of the EGS working out for someone is Gwen Frey and her game Kine. If your studio and game have the reach, popularity, and a following that excites Epic, it’s worth it to pursue one of these arrangements. There is potential to earn big payouts from Epic’s exclusivity deals, but the odds are slim. Even if you aren’t contacted for an exclusivity deal, the EGS is still an option to chase traditional sales. These agreements are hard to obtain, but not impossible. While the EGS sells non-exclusives, they are known to hand out handsome sums of money to projects they deem worthy of exclusivity deals. You keep 88% of your profits compared to Steam’s 70%. The EGS’s smaller cut of the revenue is an unignorable perk. To give you an idea of the difference in user base, the EGS has 108 million users while Steam has an estimated 1 billion. Keep in mind that with a reduced number of games there is a reduced number of users and even fewer that are interested in indie titles on the platform. The store currently has just over 250 titles for sale, orders of magnitude less than Steam’s store. There’s a lot less competition on EGS compared to Steam. Their audience may be smaller than Steam’s, but selling on these channels means accessing new players and increasing your game’s visibility. To fill the gaps you might have missed with your Steam release, look at the other popular digital stores. Selling on multiple platforms - including Steam - will maximize your game’s visibility and boost your chances of success. This has led a number of developers to seek supplemental channels to release their games on. The flood of releases means it’s more difficult than ever to get your game noticed on Steam. They also host approximately 36,000 titles as of 2020, and increasing numbers of games are hitting the platform each year. In 2018, Steam hit an impressive 90 million monthly active users.

Steam is the obvious first choice for selling a game on the market, and you’re probably doing so already. Traffic, platform, and even your target region can make a huge difference in the financial success of your game.

Epic store hit a roadblock