Steam may be the biggest player in the PC digital games space, but today it got some serious competition from Epic Games who will have no problems attracting developers to its alternative Epic Games Store.

Epic is best known for the Unreal Engine, Unreal games, and most recently, the hugely successful game Fortnite. However, today Tim Sweeney, founder of Epic Games, announced the company is going in a new direction and will launch a Steam rival called the Epic Games Store. The big differentiator here isn't for gamers, it's for developers.

Valve typically takes a 30 percent cut of game sales on Steam leaving developers the other 70 percent. The Epic Games Store is different, as it will only take a 12 percent cut. Better yet, if you develop games using the Unreal Engine, Epic takes a five percent revenue share, but if you sell the game through the Epic Games Store then that five percent comes out of the 12 percent. Releasing that same game on Steam would see the developer lose 35 percent: 30 percent to Steam and five percent to Epic.

Sweeney explained he's launching this store because he wants "a direct relationship with players," but also "fair economics" for developers. In an interview with GameInformer, Sweeney states that he believes the markup costs on other digital stores is between 300 and 400 percent when they take a 30 percent cut. Sweeney backs this up by saying even at 12 percent the Epic Games Store will still generate a profit.

Creators, including YouTube and Twitch streamers as well as bloggers and other websites, are also being supported through a referral program. These creators will be rewarded for referring players to the store with a share of the revenue from any sales. That's sure to get many creators deleting links to the Steam store and replacing them with Epic Games Store affiliate links.

Initially, the store will launch with "a hand-curated set of games on PC and Mac," but will open to other games after that and allow for Android games to also feature. There's no restrictions of what game engines can be used, either. This isn't going to be an Unreal-only store, rather a store that will offer most games you'll want to play on your gaming rig.

The launch of Epic Games Store is serious competition for Steam, not only because it offers developers a much larger share of the revenue as well as embracing creators, but it will get people asking why. For example., why does Steam take such a big cut when Epic is demonstrating you don't need to?