Epic Games annual gross revenue 2018-2020

In 2020, video game publisher and software developer Epic Games generated approximately 5.1 billion U.S. dollars in gross revenues, up from 4.22 billion U.S. dollars in the previous year.

How does Epic Games make money?

Epic Games' gross does not only include game revenue from the company battle royale hit Fortnite, but also engine revenue derived from game licenses and royalties, as well as Unreal Engine assets. Epic is the developer of the gaming engine Unreal Engine, which is currently monetized under a royalty model, meaning that is can be downloaded for free and Epic claims a percentage of sales revenue. Currently, Epic is not claiming a fee for developers that publish their games on the Epic Games Store. The Epic Games Store (EGS) was launched in December 2018. In May 2020, Epic announced that their share of royalties for games developed in Unreal Engine are waived until developers have earned their first 1 million U.S. dollars in revenue. Other income streams of the company include Epic Games Store revenue, and Merchandise and other revenue.

Epic Games Store upsetting the industry standard

One of the biggest headlines regarding the launch of Epic’s own digital storefront was the company’s attitude to developer / store revenue split. Gaming stores and app platforms including Valve’s Steam, the Apple App Store, or Google Play, usually take a 30 percent commission cut from game sales and in-game revenues. The Epic Games Store was released with the announcement that the EGS would only claim 12 percent of revenue, leaving 88 percent to the developers. This approach, as well as Epic’s attempt to circumvent Apple’s monetization strategies in the iOS app of Fortnite, has made many headlines, led to Apple removing the app from its App Store, and resulted in the still ongoing lawsuit Epic vs. Apple.