Epic Games has announced that it has acquired artist portfolio and sales site ArtStation, for an undisclosed fee. In a move likely designed to strengthen its antitrust case against Apple, Epic has told artists that it is reducing its standard commission from 30% to 12%.

The two companies made a joint announcement.

Epic went into more detail on the commissions structure in a separate blog post.

Today we are excited to announce that ArtStation is joining the Epic Games family. ArtStation provides a platform for creators across games, media and entertainment where they can develop and share their portfolios, post and discover job opportunities and make a living doing what they love. Together we will continue to grow the ArtStation community and integrate new features and tools that expand creators’ ability to showcase their talent and artwork.

At Epic, ArtStation will continue to operate as an independently branded platform while collaborating closely with the Unreal Engine team. By joining forces, the ArtStation and Unreal Engine teams will be able to empower the creative community with expanded tools, resources, and connections. And starting today, we will be reducing ArtStation Marketplace fees so creators can get even more value from the ArtStation platform. ArtStation Learning will also be free to all users for the remainder of 2021.

This is the same percentage Epic charges developers for sales through its own store (though that does increase to 30% or 35% for Steam sales).

As of today, we’re massively increasing the earning potential of sellers on the ArtStation Marketplace. We’re dropping our standard fees from 30% to only 12%. For Pro members, the fee reduces from 20% to 8% and 5% for self-promoted sales.

The company is likely to cite this as a guide to what it considers a reasonable business model. In particular, Epic separates out the transaction fee for credit card processing, charging an additional flat fee of 30 cents for this. Apple in part justifies its own cut of App Store sales on the basis of including card processing.

The lowest fee Epic now charges on ArtStation is 5% for self-promoted sales by Pro members, the subscription for which costs $9.95/month, or $119.40/year. This compares to the $99/year cost to join the Apple Developer Program.

Earlier today, we reported on a senior Google engineer undermining one of Apple’s defenses in the case.