Epic Games says Unreal Engine creators will now get 88% of sales instead of the previous 70%, and that this will apply retroactively to sales since 2014 launch
Epic Games announced today that it will be taking a smaller cut of sales made through its Unreal Engine Marketplace …
Context & Ripple Effects
In 2018 Epic moved first against its own wallet: the Unreal Engine Marketplace cut dropped from 70/30 to 88/12, with the change applied retroactively to everything sold since the engine's 2014 launch. That retroactive clause is what made it a statement rather than a pricing tweak — Epic was paying creators back for years of revenue it had already booked.
The move reads differently in hindsight because it became the template. Epic later opened the Epic Games Store to self-publishing at a 12% commission with no IAP cut, then pushed further with Epic First Run's 100% revenue window for exclusives — each step extending the same take-rate logic the Marketplace announcement established, while Unreal's reach kept growing (over half of announced PS5 and Xbox Series games use the engine).
First-order effects
- Unreal Marketplace creators receive a retroactive payout covering the 18-point difference on every sale since 2014, plus 88% of all future sales instead of 70%.
Second-order effects
- The 88/12 split gave Epic a public benchmark it would reuse against rival storefronts — the same arithmetic behind the store's later 12% commission and First Run's 100% offer, forcing competitors to defend their own 30% rates on price rather than habit.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds, engine and store economics converge around low single-digit-to-teens take rates, turning platform commissions from a fixed industry norm into a competitive variable that incumbents must justify.
The trend: Epic is systematically compressing its own platform take rates — Marketplace, then store commissions, then exclusivity windows — to reposition developer revenue share as the battleground of distribution.