i mean:

" Its pretty clear that Epic are spending more on exclusives than they are making"

what if they making a profit?

Anyone willing to bet they'll pull out all of their previous games (Jazz Jackrabbit/Unreal series) from GoG and Steam? Much like how EA did with theirs? Is there even a possibility like that?

And what if they are not? You really think that Epic are the type to say oh yes we have seen the backlash we have gotten so we will give everyone else a chance?

Whilst I am speculating, it mostly like correct as Epic as shown no remorse at all.

aye, we do not know - yet "Its pretty clear that Epic are spending more on exclusives than they are making" .... any evidence?

You keep pressing me for this. Do you have any evidence to assume otherwise?

no, but neither am I making any claims

To quote Tim Sweeney from Twitter...

"The Epic Games store earns a net profit on each transaction from its 12% store fee. Our average cost of transactions is under 12%.

Our up-front investments in exclusives and free games are significant and may exceed net profits from third-party games in 2019."

Note the wording of that first two sentences. Note how he is only talking about transaction fees and not any other operating costs...I saw someplace else he expected they would be in the red for 2019 as well.

The exclusive deals not being profitable to epic is kind of expected. That's not the point of exclusives, epic isn't even trying to make it profitable.
The whole point is to expand and reach a wider audiance. The more traffic their storefront gets, the more profitable it will become. They're trying to reach the critical mass as fast as possible and willing to accept a short term loss. They clearly have the ressources for it, so that's the most sensible business plan.

"Sensible" is a bit of a value statement in this case. It doesn't appear to be reckless, and they have some (possible multiple) strategic goal, but that doesn't inherently make it prudent either.

It is almost certainly the one with the highest possible return, but also the most downside risk because it requires a large upfront investment on something that's far from a sure thing.

Fact is they have the cash to absorb that risk and seem to want to either get in on the game or change the nature of the game, though it doesn't seem clear to me that derives from any need to do so.

I'll just stick to mr. 8bitbeard's mantra for a darn good while:

"GOG is everything PC games distribution should be, from keeping old games alive that would have otherwise faded into the miasma, to taking a hard-like DRM free stance. In a perfect world, everyone would see this and GOG would be the absolute dominant platform in PC gaming."

Absolutely true. It sucks that gog gets often ignored even though anything they do, apart from some UI related things, is top notch. GOG also certainly has a impact in publishers considering rereleases/remasters of their old games. Even if GOG is still a smaller store, their impact towards the industry can't and shouldn't be ignored. At least not in a perfect world.

Epic Games Store frustrates me. They have the clout to really push some pro-consumer policies thanks to their cash infusion and lower cut. They could easily push for DRM free gaming more than even GOG can. Just say “in return for the lower cut and cash infusion, all games on the Epic Store will be DRM free, or at the least automatically DRM free after a year if companies really want DRM”. DRM free AAA games would be an amazing selling point for Epic. Instead, Epic offers DRM free as an “option”, exactly like Steam, and it’s an option most publishers ignore. So Epic just ends up having all the same problems I have with Steam, with less benefits.

Their lower cut doesn't really work does it. As if publishers will feed more money to the true developers. It's just making the greedy publishers even richer.

It seem you are a little angry about Fortnites "epic" success ( pardon the pun ) .. did they do something to upset you ?

I mean, a lot of Epic’s current behavior is because they have Fortnite cash to throw around. I am curious how sustainable Epic Games Store would be without Fortnite. Fortnite’s popularity isn’t gonna last forever so having a good business model for the store itself is needed.