Fwiw, that's probably pretty normal for publisher deals. This still seems like a better deal than developers usually get.
It's not (necessarily) a bad deal, and provides a good incentive to the dev making a good game, sure....
But at the same time, if we take Remedy, their last few titles (Alan Wake, Quantum Break, and now Control) haven't exactly lit the sales charts on fire - IIRC Alan Wake took a while to become profitable, and sold a LOT on cheap steam sales.
I understand that Remedy wants the deal - guaranteed money for 'up to' 100% of dev costs, full IP retaining and creative control...but I'm curious to see what Epic thinks they'll actually be getting out of this.
Could just be Epic loss-leading with Fortnite money to further establish their being a 'real player' in the PC space beyond just moneyhatting exclusives, but....who knows?
Actually the three developers that took it don't surprise me at all with what the deal itself presents.
Yeah, after thinking on it a bit more I can 100% see why the three devs here would make this kind of 'guaranteed funding' deals.