Epic Games launching new storefront

Kind of unsurprising, but it looks like Epic is launching a storefront and they're not shy about making it clear that they intend to compete with Steam, at least in terms of getting developers on board:

Epic has published games in the past, obviously, but it looks like they're making this with the express intent of getting other developers/publishers on board.

When You Succeed, We Succeed

We’ve built this store and its economic model so that Epic’s interests are aligned with your interests. Because of the high volume of Fortnite transactions, we can process store payments, serve bandwidth, and support customers very efficiently. From Epic’s 12% store fee, we’ll have a profitable business we’ll grow and reinvest in for years to come!

It's an interesting idea and I hope it has a good UI. I know everyone loves to have everything on Steam but I generally try to buy from publisher's storefronts for stuff like Ubisoft games just to ensure they get max revenue out of it. It'll be curious to see if Steam ever decides to drop their 30% cut.

valve still provides a lot of value for me as a consumer, so i'm not necessarily looking to immediately jump ship for an unproven platform.

that said, if this move by epic lights a fire under valve to do better by devs and consumers alike, i'm 100% for it. more competition for my dollar is a net win. and the moment i think the value proposition has tipped in epic's favour, i'll happily take my business to them.

Really seems like a slam dunk to bring the cult of Fortnite into a storefront.

Being unable to remember the last time I played an Epic game though I'm not sure I feel to compelled to migrate anywhere.

Will be interesting to see what kind of features Epic will offer it's users (gamers & devs). Being able to get 18% more revenue from your games on Epic is attractive, but if it means that you don't have an easy solution for mods, cloud saves, updates, backend statistics, networking,matchmaking, anti-cheat, payment processing, adding DLC, controller functionality & the userbase is significantly lower than Steam's, it might not make too much sense to maintain a 2nd version of a game. And if you're a dev that can count on hitting that 50M$ revenue, suddenly the difference is only 8%. Probably not worth to make an exclusive switch towards, but a compelling option to release your games on the side. I just don't think they'll get an userbase that can compete with steam in the next 5 years. But it's always a welcome sight to see competition happening.

More competition is always good. No exclusives though please.

I have no problem with another launcher. I just don't want to sign up and make a real account on something that's constantly getting unauthorized access attempts every couple weeks despite never really playing anything on it. I wonder how many people out there have Epic accounts they've forgotten about that they are locked out of due to failed access attempts. I never got this with Steam.

A better revenue split sounds great (speaking as a developer), but there is an item that seems pretty bad to me.

A lot of the traffic for indie games comes from tags and "similar games", if they don't have this it's going to be really hard for indie games to get noticed.

A better split for developers is definitely a good thing but I worry that 95% of the consumer base doesn't care at all about that. Epic will have to find some really big pro-consumer features to include in order to entice a lot of people over.

Hope this pans out. Valve's 30% cut is pretty obnoxious considering what a tiny slice of the PC gaming stack Steam is. The console vendors by comparison may take a similar cut, but they deliver the full stack down to the hardware (often at a loss), and they actually have robust certification processes that games have to pass to ship so their platforms don't end up a poorly-curated mess of asset-ripped trash.

On the customer end, if Epic is looking for a competitive advantage they could take storefront curation seriously. I hope I'm not being too wishful.

I used to want all of my games in one digital hub, but Steam's ongoing bloat and the rise of EA's Origin subscription service has changed my mind. I'd welcome a competing service that favors quality over quantity.

Just bring back Paragon and me and the other 4 people who ever played that game will be happy

Honestly, not super interested.

I mean, i'm not a fan of how Steam has managed itself the last few years.

But i'm also not a fan of going back to where every game had its own launcher, it's like installing stuff off of discs back in the early 2000s, but now everything has a user account with a password I have to manage, and that makes me worry that it is a vector for identity theft/credit card fraud.

I suppose the optimal solution for me, would be for games to be able to authenticate without having to run the Epic launcher so I can continue using LaunchBox (a third party frontend) to maintain a single game library, if I have to start using their store.

Generally, I go for Steam, because as a Canadian, the best deals on games come from Green Man Gaming, which deals in steam keys for the most part. When everyone hiked AAA prices to $80CAD I had to cut back. (Even if it is "just the exchange rate" I didn't magically find an extra 25% to spend on games, because I am not paid in US dollars)

They should name the store something with "Megagames". And make sure every game has a free first shareware episode.

Also, I only wish GOG would get more competition, I have absolutely no need for another DRM'd to hell storefront. Origin covers that for me since they at least have the decency to let me play their games as a subscription service instead of individual purchases I actually don't have ownership of.

I'm surprised someone hasn't developed a launcher that handles all of your launchers.