The Xsolla Capital investment Fund, in cooperation with Epic Games, announced plans to invest in indie developers who create games on Unreal Engine 4. More about the contract App2Top.ru I asked Dmitry Burkovsky, Xsolla’s vice President for Business Development.
Why should Xsolla collaborate with Epic Games?
Dmitry Burkovsky
Xsolla has been a partner of Epic Games for a long time, providing solutions for billing and payments to Epic products (and is currently developing an SDK with a full set of Xsolla products and services for developers using Unreal Engine).
Today’s announcement is Xsolla Capital. We believe that every developer can act as a publisher of their games – and we are ready to support them in this.
How will the selection of projects for financing take place?
Preference will be given to the most interesting and promising projects. We finance games at a late stage of development: experience shows that there is always not enough budget, and there is never enough money for marketing.
What type of games will be preferred?
We have no preferences in terms of project types, genres, or platforms.
On what terms will you invest money?
Xsolla Capital is a fund that finances projects based on the royalty model. We do not acquire shares in the company, do not participate in management decisions. In this sense, we are like a publisher, with an important exception – we do not interfere in the publishing process, but simply help the developer with these services and tools.
How much do you plan to spend on one project, are there any minimum-maximum limits?
The maximum investment is limited to $5 million. For larger transactions, we are ready to attract partners from other funds, for example, Mail.Ru Game Investment Fund.
What will Epic itself have from the collaboration?
Epic Games is interested in ensuring that developers using the Unreal Engine have access to funding and marketing resources. We are here to help developers with this.
The announcement said that Xsolla Capital will also help with the royalty coverage for the use of Unreal Engine 4. Are we talking about the 5% that the developer should deduct from the income of the game when using a free license or something else?
We are talking about a custom license, which gives, of the most interesting, access to the Unreal Developer Network. To receive it, the developer under normal conditions needs to pay an advance, which we are ready to cover.
Have you already selected projects that you are ready to support? If so, when should we expect announcements?
Yes, the first few projects have been identified, the announcement will not be until the summer. But the fund is just being launched, we are open to everyone.
PS The question of whether the current contract with Epic Games is exclusive or whether it is worth waiting for a similar partnership with Unity from Xsolla, Dmitry left unanswered.