Epic Games Takes On Steam With New Developer-Friendly Online Gaming Store

Epic Games just pulled a huge move for the PC gaming community now that they are going up against Steam for this niche in video games. With Fortnite’s record-breaking success that continues to pump out strong numbers, the studio wants to take that and make it even bigger with their own launcher for both their games and third-party titles.

The Unreal Engine website updated their blog with the big announcement with a move that could shake up the PC community immensely. “For the past five years, we’ve been building tools enabling Epic to bring our games directly to players,” read the latest reveal. “We built the Epic Games launcher on PC and Mac featuring Fortnite and Unreal Engine; we built a worldwide digital commerce ecosystem supporting dozens of payment methods; and we gained great economies of scale thanks to Fortnite’s growth.”

They mentioned that they had two visions for this undertaking: a store that offered “fair” economics as well as a direct relationship with their player base. Since Epic Games is already known for being incredibly hands-on with their gaming community, it’s not a shock to see that be a priority for the studio.

The latest announcement also shared some important notes about how this will work, including what it means for developers. According to Epic Games, “Developers receive 88% of revenue. There are no tiers or thresholds. Epic takes 12%. And if you’re using Unreal Engine, Epic will cover the 5% engine royalty for sales on the Epic Games store, out of Epic’s 12%.”

Players will also be able to subscribe to a game’s newsfeed automatically following their purchase, giving them a front-row seat to any new changes.

But it wasn’t just Fortnite that blew up in popularity. The streaming world has seen a massive boom in the past few years and the new client wants to help with that as well. “YouTube content creators, Twitch streamers, bloggers, and others are at the leading edge of game discovery. The 10,000-strong Epic Games Support-A-Creator program helps you reach creators, so they can help you reach players. If you opt to participate, creators who refer players to buy your game will receive a share of the revenue that you set (tracked by code or affiliate marketing link). To jumpstart the creator economy, Epic will cover the first 5% of creator revenue-sharing for the first 24 months.”

The new store looks ambitious and it looks like PC gamers will have a lot to be excited for. We don’t know when the new client will release, though we do know that more information is slated to be revealed during The Game Awards.

Thoughts on Epic Games launching their own PC gaming client? Join in on the conversation in the comment section below, or hit me up over on Twitter @DirtyEffinHippy.