The Epic First Run programme allows developers of any size to claim 100% of revenue if they agree to make their game exclusive on the Epic Games Store for six months.
After the six months are up, the game will revert to the standard Epic Games Store revenue split of 88% for the developer and 12% for Epic Games.
Why couldn’t that happen a second time?
Maybe because steam is already extremely popular and has improved more in the last few years than Epic has.
I don’t know how popular stardock was but it couldn’t have been anywhere close to how popular steam is now.
Epic hasn’t really done anything to improve.
Installing games from disc was extremely popular when Steam launched, though, and, even though it was what consumers said they preferred, it eventually got replaced by Steam once enough games required Steam. The reality was that consumers, even if they didn’t like Steam and preferred the old way, weren’t willing to give up on PC gaming in order to avoid it.
If Epic can get enough games to require EGS, I really think the same thing could happen a second time. Consumers will be pissed off, but they’re not going to give up on PC games. They’ll just go along with it.