Epic boss Tim Sweeney called Valve execs ‘assholes’ over Steam platform fees

[Pelican Press 0]

Epic boss Tim Sweeney called Valve execs ‘*********’ over Steam platform fees

Ahead of the Epic Game Store’s launch in 2018, Epic Games boss Tim Sweeney called Valve executives “*********” in a heated email concerning platform fees.

Valve has traditionally taken a 30% share of game sales on Steam, although in October 2018 it introduced a revenue share tier system which offers more to developers if their games meet certain sales thresholds (75%/25% on earnings beyond $10 million and 80%/20% on earnings beyond $50 million).

The move seemingly riled Sweeney, whose company would launch Epic Games Store in December 2018 with a relatively generous revenue split of 88% for developers and 12% for Epic.

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, the email in question has been made public as part of the discovery phase of an antitrust lawsuit filed against Valve by developer Wolfire.

“Right now, you ********* are telling the world that the strong and powerful get special terms, while 30% is for the little people,” Sweeney

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in a message to Valve boss Gabe Newell and Erik Johnson, one of the company’s business development executives.

“We’re all in for a prolonged battle if Apple tries to keep their monopoly and 30% by cutting backroom deals with big publishers to keep them quiet. Why not give ALL developers a better deal? What better way is there to convince Apple quickly that their model is now totally untenable?”

In an internal response to Sweeney’s message, Valve’s chief operating officer, Scott ******, questioned: “You **** bro?”

Epic and Apple would go on to contest a long-running antitrust legal battle after the former moved to circumvent the latter’s 30% platform fees with a new direct payment option in Fortnite, leading to the game’s removal from the App Store and the termination of Epic’s developer account.

Following the introduction of new ********* legislation designed to ensure that so-called gatekeepers like Apple don’t use their dominant position in the market to stifle competition, Epic was this month reluctantly granted a new developer account.

It said it plans to use it to launch Epic Games Store and Fortnite on Apple devices in Europe this year.

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