Xsolla Capital Partners With Epic Games To Fund Unreal Engine 4 Indie Games

Investment fund Xsolla Capital announced Wednesday it plans to partner with developer Epic Games in a bid to help indie game developers get their games to market.

As part of the partnership, Xsolla Capital plans to support developers who want to use Unreal Engine 4 in their games. Xsolla Capital said in a statement it plans to provide financial and marketing resources to developers, along with covering the expenses needed to license Unreal Engine 4 for their games. Support for developers is also available through the Unreal Developers Network.

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Xsolla Capital also will provide retail solutions for games through its main Xsolla e-commerce platform, which provides backend sales resources for customer service and other selling tools.

In its statement, Xsolla Capital partner Dmitri Bourkovski said the potential to make it easier for game developers to bring their games to audiences played a role in Xsolla's partnership.

“Xsolla Capital is happy to help Unreal Engine 4 game developers deliver their titles to a wider audience. We’ve seen many independent developers embracing UE4 in new and emerging game genres,” Bourkovski said. “Xsolla Capital is excited to be a part of bringing these next-level indie titles to existing and expanding game audiences.”

Epic Games European manager Mike Gamble said the popularity of Unreal Engine 4 among indie developers was a similarly important factor in why it came onboard with Xsolla.

“Now is the perfect time for Xsolla to partner with our team to bring outstanding independent games to market,” Gamble said. “Since taking Unreal Engine 4 free two years ago, we’ve seen an enormous rise in high-quality titles made by small teams, and Xsolla is able to share in that success by allowing developers to maintain creative control while receiving many of the benefits a traditional publishing arrangement would provide.”

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Xsolla Capital originally launched earlier this year as an offshoot of the Xsolla platform. As VentureBeat noted, Xsolla Capital operates by funding developers who need help finishing their game and receiving a percentage of royalties in return once the game is finished.

Epic Games is a long-running development studio best known for video game franchises like the Gears of War and Unreal Tournament series. But for developers, the studio is equally well-known for its flagship Unreal Engine for game development. Since its first release in 1998, the Unreal Engine has been used under the hood to power a variety of console and PC games. Current generation games that utilize Unreal Engine 4 include the indie diving-adventure game Abzu and Gears of War 4.

For Xsolla, the fund hopes to capitalize on a wave of recent successes in the indie games market. While the video games industry has traditionally been fueled by massive franchises like the Call of Duty series. Indie titles like Minecraft have been equally notable shakers thanks to their low overhead, high revenue and ability to appeal to unconventional market sectors.