Epic Games has announced that it is allowing developers to self-publish their games to the Epic Games Store.
This information was announced by Epic Games through their social media. If you’re interested in the state of the video game industry, you can check out our other articles here.
Epic Games Allows Developers to Self-Publish Their Games to the Epic Games Store
Epic Games has finally allowed developers to self-publish games to the Epic Games Store. This change could mark a potentially major shift for the Epic Games Store, as more games could appear on the platform.
The cost of submitting a game on the Epic Games Store is 100 USD, the same as Steam. However, if a developer self-publishes their game on the Epic Games Store, there are some rules to abide by:
- PC Crossplay for Multiplayer Games
- Epic Games Store Achievements
- Age Ratings for Regional Distribution
- Prohibited Content
- Game Quality
For prohibited content, Epic Games will take additional actions beyond copyright infringement, illegal content, and malware, namely:
- Hateful or discriminatory content
- Pornography
- Products with Adults Only ratings
Speaking with The Verge, Steve Allison said that if an app is deemed to be trespassing, it will be looked at by a small group who will decide whether it should be allowed or not.
“However, it’s not our goal to control their content other than to measure it against those principles,” Allison said. There is no formal process for appealing decisions, but “we will always talk to everyone about any decisions that are made”.
Epic Games will also offer age ratings to developers for free through a partnership with the International Age Rating Coalition (IARC). Tim Sweeney believes this could be a very important differentiator for the Epic Games Store.
There are a lot of PC gaming ecosystems that have long been damaged by the lack of a rating system that is easily accessible to developers.
Tim Sweeney, CEO of Epic Games
Speaking with PC Gamer, Sweeney also revealed that “Steam has created a real problem for the industry” with Steamworks.
Steam doesn’t have requirements like Epic Games Store for multiplayer games and Steamworks. The problem is that the API doesn’t work on any store except Steam. On the other hand, the Epic Online Services API supports crossplay features.
They have a classic lock-in strategy where they build this service that only works with their store and they use the fact that they have the majority market share to encourage everyone to submit games that have a bad experience on other stores.
We got a taste of that early on with some of the multiplayer games that came into the Epic Games Store. Steamworks doesn’t work in our store, so they either have fewer or no multiplayer features, or they’re limited to a much smaller audience at the Epic Games Store launch, so you have a lot of multiplayer games that feel broken.
Remember, Call of Duty suffered a fiasco when it launched on the Windows Store a while back where you could only do matchmaking with other Windows Store players, and that’s not how PCs work.
Tim Sweeney, CEO of Epic Games
