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Emails from 2017 and 2018, disclosed in court filings and reported by Ars Technica on March 14, 2024, show Epic Games founder and CEO Tim Sweeney privately arguing that Valve’s 30 percent Steam fee was no longer justifiable and that the largest developers were getting better terms than everyone else. His sharpest line tells Valve that “you assholes” present special terms for the strong and powerful while “30% is for the little people.” The emails came out in Wolfire Games’ price-fixing case against Valve. Epic was not directly involved in those legal arguments, according to that reporting. The headline softens Sweeney’s word to “a—holes”; the emails use the full term.
What Sweeney objected to
Sweeney’s complaint had two parts. The first was the rate itself: Steam’s starting fee of 30 percent. The second was his view that Steam’s scale had eroded the case for that rate. In the emails, he accepted that the fee had “a good case” in the platform’s early days, but argued it was no longer defensible given Steam’s size and what he believed were lower distribution costs. Those are his assertions in correspondence, not findings made by a court or regulator.
The 2017 exchange with Gabe Newell
The earliest message in the reporting dates to August 2017. Valve co-founder Gabe Newell asked Sweeney whether Valve was doing anything to annoy him. Sweeney’s answer was the fee argument: that 30 percent might have been reasonable once, but not at Steam’s current scale.
The cost breakdown Sweeney gave
Sweeney did not stop at the storefront fee. He argued that developers face several deductions on top of it, and he offered an illustrative split of a game’s revenue. The table below lists those figures as he presented them. They are his estimates for illustration, not audited or universal industry costs.
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| Item in Sweeney’s illustration | Share attributed by Sweeney | Status |
|---|---|---|
| Distribution | 30% | Sweeney’s estimate in an email, as reported by Ars Technica |
| Marketing or user acquisition | 30% | Sweeney’s estimate in an email, as reported by Ars Technica |
| Servers | 10% | Sweeney’s estimate in an email, as reported by Ars Technica |
| Engine | 5% | Sweeney’s estimate in an email, as reported by Ars Technica |
| Left for creating the game | 25% | Remainder of Sweeney’s split; not independently verified |
Two other figures in the reporting carry their own qualifications. Sweeney estimated that the true distribution cost for PC games priced at $25 or more in Western markets was “under 7% of gross.” He based that on his experience with Fortnite and Paragon, so it reflects Epic’s own titles rather than an independent cost study. The Ars Technica article sets it against the 12 percent take of Epic Games Store, which is the rate reported in that article for Epic’s own storefront.
The November and December 2018 messages
By late 2018, Epic was preparing to launch Epic Games Store, and Sweeney gave Valve advance notice of the plan. He argued that lower Steam fees would show the benefits of store competition, and that Valve could demonstrate this itself by improving its economics for all developers.
The December 3 message
On December 3, 2018, Sweeney criticized Valve’s reported lower rates for its largest developers. The reporting does not spell out the exact terms of those arrangements, so the complaint should be read as a complaint about differential treatment, not a verified description of Valve’s contract structure. Sweeney’s key lines, as reproduced in the Ars Technica article, were:
“If you subtract out the top 25 games on Steam, I bet Valve made more profit from most of the next 1,000 than the developer themselves made.”
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“A timely move by Valve to improve Steam economics for all developers would make a great difference in all of this, clearly demonstrating that store competition leads to better rates for all developers. Epic would gladly speak in support of such a move anytime!”
“Right now, you assholes are telling the world that the strong and powerful get special terms, while 30% is for the little people.”
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The complaint is therefore about fairness across developer size. Sweeney’s position is that the standard rate falls hardest on smaller developers while larger ones negotiate better terms.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.Valve’s response in the emails
The reporting records one reply from Valve. Erik Johnson forwarded Sweeney’s message to COO Scott Lynch, who answered: “You mad bro?” The cited article does not describe a substantive written response from Valve to the fee argument in these emails, and it does not describe a public statement from Valve about them.
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What the emails do and do not establish
- Established by the reporting: Sweeney privately criticized Steam’s 30 percent starting fee before Epic Games Store launched, tied that criticism to Steam’s scale, and objected to lower rates for the largest developers.
- Not established: That a court found Valve’s fee excessive, or that Sweeney’s cost arithmetic is correct. His 25 percent remainder and under-7-percent distribution figure are his own estimates.
- Not established: The exact terms Valve gave its largest developers. The reporting describes them only as lower rates.
- Limits of this article: The reporting notes that parts of the case materials were redacted, and the full court exhibits were not reviewed for this article. The quotes above are reproduced as they appear in the Ars Technica report.
- Dated context: These messages are from 2017 and 2018, and the reporting dates from March 2024. This article does not assess Steam’s or Epic Games Store’s current terms, which should be checked on each company’s own published pages.
The emails are a useful record of how one of the industry’s largest publishers framed the Steam fee debate during the period when Epic was building its own store. They show a specific argument, that a flat 30 percent rate looks different at Steam’s scale and with larger developers paying less, but they do not settle whether that argument was correct.
Source: Kyle Orland, “You a—holes”: Court docs reveal Epic CEO’s anger at Steam’s 30% fees, Ars Technica, March 14, 2024.
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