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Some Epic Store games are pushing back or scrapping Steam releases
Satisfactory, one of the upcoming games you'll be able to buy on Epic's new store, will no longer be available on Steam, while two others—Rebel Galaxy Outlaw and Genesis Alpha One—will be timed exclusives for the Epic Store, the developers have announced.
First-person factory builder Satisfactory has removed its Steam page entirely, and Jace Varley from developer Coffee Stain Studios posted a video clarifying that the Epic Store will be "the only place you'll be able to get it". He promised to answer more questions in a future Q&A.
Space disaster sim Genesis Alpha One will also launch exclusively on the Epic Store in January, publisher Team17 said in a Steam post. The wording—"we can confirm that Genesis Alpha One will not be launching on Steam on January 29th 2019"—makes it sound like it will come to the platform at some point.
Developer Double Damage's announcement was the most revealing: It confirmed yesterday that its space combat sim Rebel Galaxy Outlaw will release exclusively on the Epic Store and will be available "elsewhere" after 12 months. The decision was, in part, fueled by a desire to reduce the cut that stores such as Steam take from games sales, it said. Valve currently takes a 30 percent cut of the sale, whereas Epic will only take 12 percent.
Double Damage said it hoped the 88/12 split would be the "new standard", and that offering exclusive content to Epic would help create the "momentum" to make that happen across all stores.
"We hope this is the start of establishing a new standard," it said in a blog post. "Before Valve and the 70/30 split it was pretty darn rough to be an indie, both in terms of royalty share and in terms of the ability to sell things without a publisher. We can all thank Valve for using their leverage to make that happen, and usher in the era we have now. We think it’s safe to say that a large percentage of the games made today wouldn’t exist without it.
"Epic is using their leverage to push that even farther, to 88/12. That’s another whole strata of developers who can survive. The only way this gets any traction is with some exclusive content and we’re willing to be one of the canaries in the mineshaft."
Double Damage also said that having a "curated store with a more limited selection of quality games" was a positive for customers.
The three games join other Epic Store exclusives: Ashen is available now on the store, but its Steam page says a release date is "TBD". Hades, the next game from Bastion developer Supergiant Games, is also live in Early Access on the Epic Store right now, and isn't available elsewhere.
Other upcoming Epic Store games, including Outer Wilds and Maneater, still have Steam pages, and the developers have not indicated the games will be Epic Store exclusives.
