Initially, Sergiy Galyonkin was best known as the creator of SteamSpy, a tool whose database was once indispensable for developers and gamers wanting an accurate estimate of Steam game sales, but in the face of which Valve found the parade in 2018. At that time, the Ukrainian was also head of editorial strategy at Epic Games. And in addition to contributing to the adoption and monetization of Fourteen daysGalyonkin secretly piloted a sales platform project aimed at competing with Steam. Almost five years after its release, it’s not certain that Valve feels particularly crushed by the pressure of the Epic Games Store, but for Sergiy Galyonkin, the Epic Games adventure that began in early 2016 is definitely over. A decision that the former Wargaming employee attributes to the development of the company, with which he no longer feels sufficiently connected.
What is Epic 5.0?
“Today is officially my last day at Epic Games. These eight years were some of the most exciting of my career and I am deeply grateful to my former colleagues and Tim Sweeney for helping me build Epic 4.0. I am also extremely grateful for the generous donation of $144 million that Epic Games sent to the various charities to help Ukraine in the early days of the Russian invasion in 2022. At that time, Epic Games’ support was higher than that of some other “G7 countries,” we can read in it Start message published on X
“We created Fortnite, which became a cultural phenomenon. We’ve proven that free-to-play without pay-to-win can work on this scale. With our 88/12 revenue split, we challenged the status quo of game distribution,” he adds, pointing to the fact that studios take home 88% of the revenue from sales of their games on the Epic Games Store (compared to 70% in most other stores). ).
“Today, Epic Games is ready to evolve from a game developer, engine creator and publisher to a platform, Epic 5.0. I’m not a good candidate for this new version of Epic that requires people of a different gender. »
“I plan to stay in the video game industry. I also hope to be more vocal now that I no longer have to worry about the PR department showing up in my DMs. »
In addition to his work at Epic Games and SteamSpy, Sergiy Galyonkin is also passionate about photography and co-hosts a game development podcast for Russian-speaking audiences with his friend Michael Kuzmin. Galyonkin’s departure follows the departure of Donald Mustard, the creative director of Fourteen dayswho announced his retirement last month.
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