That’s folding money –
Money likely came as advance against earnings ahead of Epic Games Store sales.
At this point, we knowEpic is committedtopaying a lot of moneyforexclusive gamesto attract players to itsEpic Games Store. Now, we seem to know how much it paid up front for at least one of those exclusives: € 9. 49 million (about $ 10. (million at today’s exchange rates).
The EGS exclusive in question isRemedy and 505 Games’ supernatural shooter (Control), and the number in question comes buried inan Italian earnings report from (Games parent company Digital Bros.) (asnoticed by analyst Daniel Ahmad). That figure is listed in two tables in the document, corresponding to total revenue fromControland total revenue from theEpic Games Store, both for the period ending June 30, 2019.
“Revenue come [s] from the computer version ofControl, “the report reads, according toa rough translationof a portion of the document. “The game was released on August 27 but the structure of the marketplace who requested the PC exclusivity has made possible to gain the revenue starting from this quarter. “
“We don’t comment on the terms of our deals,” an Epic Games representativetold GameDailyin response to a request for comment. “Everyone should playControl; it’s really good. “
Back in July,Oobletsdeveloper Glumberlandrevealed via blog postthat the money it received up front from Epic represented “a minimum guarantee on sales that would match what we’d be wanting to earn if we were just sellingOobletsacross all the stores. ” Epic’s Sergei Galyonkinhas also saidthat Epic’s exclusivity deals tend to be structured as minimum guarantees against future sales.
Assuming Digital Bros.
got a similar deal, that means the publisher won’t make any additional money from Epic Games Store sales ofControluntil it earns back the € 9. 49 million upfront payment. For context, at $ (per sale andEpic’s standard 88% revenue share, (Control) would have to sell roughly 200, 000 PC copies for Digital Bros. to meet that minimum (or more if the average sales price comes down due to discounts). Guaranteeing that revenue up front, though, helps Digital Bros. avoid uncertainty in its balance sheet and, in turn, helps Epic bring in new customers to its growing storefront.
Back in 2017, Digital Bros.revealedthat it would be paying a royalty of 45 percent of net sales fromControlto the developers at Remedy. And last month, Remedy CEO Tero Virtalasaidthe company spent between € 20 and € (million) $ 22 to $ 33 million) to develop the game, which is also available on Xbox One and PS4.
“It’s been about three years now and at the peak of production we had about 100 developers on average, “Virtala added. “I can’t give you the exact number, but within one-to-two million units, we will have broken even. After that we are profitable.”
The PC version of 505 Games’s co-op adventureJourney to the Savage Planetwill also bean Epic Games Store exclusivewhen it launches next January.
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