Epic Games launches its own online game store
Epic Games, the developer of the popular game Fortnite and the widely used Unreal Engine in the game industry, announces that it is coming with its own online game store. With this, the company wants to compete with Steam.
Epic Games does not yet say when its own online store for games will be online; the company only reports that that will happen ‘soon’. Once the store is out, there will only be a few select games left for PC and Mac, but after that, over the course of 2019, the platform will be more widely accessible to other games, including Android games and other ‘open platforms’. ‘.
It is still unclear which games are involved; the company will probably report more about this during The Game Awards on Thursday. Epic CEO Tim Sweeney told The Verge that the goal is to eventually include games of all kinds of quality levels and genres in the store. He also says he is open to iOS games, although it is unlikely that Apple will cooperate in this area.
The store operates on the principle that developers receive 88 percent of the revenue, with no tiers or conditions attached. Epic Games will keep the remaining twelve percent. If a developer uses the Unreal Engine, Epic Games also takes care of the five percent royalty payments.
It’s clear that Epic Games wants to compete with Steam, Valve’s current dominant gaming platform. The company behind Fortnite has posted an image comparing developer revenue remittance. At Steam, the ratio is less favourable: not 12 percent is for the store owner, but 30 percent. Valve recently announced that it would come up with a slightly more favorable arrangement in this regard, for those games that bring in more than ten million dollars; developers of these games do not have to donate 30 but 25 percent.
Epic Games will also operate a program to support content creators. Furthermore, it will be possible to request a refund if a game is not to your liking and there are no plans for features such as discussion forums or facilities for facilitating game streams.