Epic Games may lose millions after struggling to recuperate costs from the Epic Games Store, following its fight to gain market share from Steam.
The Fortnite giant spent around $444 million in 2020 on making the storefront more lucrative to PC gamers, mainly through giving away titles for free and exclusivity deals.
The company dug deep to offer "minimum guarantees" to developers releasing games exclusive to the Epic Games Store. Under this arrangement, titles must remain exclusive to the PC storefront for one year, even if they're released on console platforms.
This means that the developer will receive a guaranteed advance from Epic whether or not their game sells enough to recoup the number. As an example, the company spent over $10 million securing PC exclusivity for Remedy's Control in 2019.