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

15.03.2024 - 15:01 / videogameschronicle.com / Gabe Newell / Tim Sweeney / Tom Ivan

Ahead of the Epic Game Store’s launch in 2018, Epic Games boss Tim Sweeney called Valve executives “assholes” 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.

As spotted by GameDiscoverCo, 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 assholes are telling the world that the strong and powerful get special terms, while 30% is for the little people,” Sweeney wrote 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 Lynch, questioned: “You mad 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 European 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.