Epic Games is now a third-party multi-plat publisher, secures three big studios

Enlarge / The first three studios with Epic Games Publishing deals are as follows: Playdead (Limbo, Inside), Remedy (Max Payne, Alan Wake, Control), and gen DESIGN (whose staff was responsible for Sony exclusives like Ico, Shadow of the Colossus, The Last Guardian). (credit: Collage by Aurich Lawson)

Epic Games: The engine maker, the game maker, the storefront handler... and now the games publisher.

Epic Games Publishing came into formal existence on Wednesday by announcing plans to fund, launch, and promote new multi-platform video games. The announcement hinged on two key points: which studios had already signed to EGP and what financial terms EGP games developers can expect.

While most game publishing deals aren't typically laid bare for the public, Epic has already chosen to confirm some of EGP's financial nitty-gritty. In addition to letting studios retain "100%" control of their intellectual property (an increasingly popular term for game-publishing contracts), EGP also promises to fund "up to 100%" of all game development costs. "Once costs are recouped," Epic says, developers will earn "at least 50% of profits." (That mix of "up to" and "at least" in the last two points may imply that those figures vary as a pair-meaning, if a developer pays for more of its dev costs, it might stand to claim more profit-sharing in the long term. Epic has not clarified that point.)

Read 3 remaining paragraphs | Comments