Epic Paid Nearly $10.45 Million For Control's PC Exclusivity

We've known for some time that Epic Games had to be doling out some real dough for all of these Epic Games Store exclusives. What we didn't know — at least not until the publisher of Control spilled the beans — was how much Epic was paying.

Try 9.49 million euros on for size. That's roughly $10.45 million, and according to industry analyst Daniel Ahmad, that is not what publisher 505 Games made after Epic took its share from Control's sales in the Epic Games Store. Instead, that is what Epic paid simply to have the privilege of calling Control an exclusive, meaning 505 Games and its parent company Digital Bros got that money at the start without having to sell jack.

This leads to an interesting question: how much does Control need to sell on PC, then, in order for Epic to make that money back? Well, if you figure that Epic's cut is 12%, the company is grossing around $7.20 per sale. That means the Epic Games Store would need to move approximately 1.45 million digital copies of Control to break even. Given that the Epic Games Store is the only place PC players can even buy Control, that actually doesn't sound impossible!

We're rather thrilled that these figures came out, because they offer a tiny bit of insight into how Epic is structuring these deals, and how it's managing to ink so many of them. It seems Epic might not be paying nearly as much as people expected for exclusives, perhaps because of the larger cut developers and publishers get to keep from sales. And if you thought the exclusivity deals were losing money, well, that might not be so accurate, either. Epic could very well profit from Control even after paying out that $10.45 million. And if Epic isn't burning through its Fortnite cash to sign exclusives, they're probably not going to stop anytime soon.

We'll report back should more about Epic's various exclusivity deals come to light.