Epic Games Has Launched Self-Publishing Tools for Developers

On Thursday, Epic Games announced that it has started allowing developers to self-publish their games, which has the potential to bring a significant change to the PC storefront.

Epic Games Store has a submission fee of $100, the same as Steam's fee for game submissions. This system is similar to Valve's Steam Direct, which was launched in 2018, and will potentially lead to a significant increase in the number of games in Epic's library in the coming year.

Epic's self-publishing rules are similar to Steam's, although there are a few notable differences. While Epic's game submission guidelines are more flexible in some regards, Epic has two significant rules that Steam doesn't have – the storefront does not allow any pornographic content and for multiplayer games, EGS requires crossplay compatibility with other PC stores.

Unlike EGS, Valve has permitted adult games on Steam since 2018. However, the company has faced challenges in determining what content to allow. For instance, Valve currently prohibits "sexually explicit images of real people." Epic will probably have a similar issue having to decide where to draw a line between erotic content and pornography. 

EGS requires multiplayer games to have crossplay with other PC stores, which means players can play together, regardless of where they purchased the game. Epic Online Services provides a free solution for cross-launcher multiplayer, but developers can use their own online system if they prefer, Epic said.

Meanwhile, Steam doesn't have this requirement. Epic CEO Tim Sweeney has criticized Valve's Steamworks, the company's free multiplayer API similar to Epic Online Services, for not working on other stores except Steam, creating a problem for the industry.

In an interview with PC Gamer, Sweeney said that Valve has "a classic lock-in strategy where they build these services that only work with their store, and they use the fact that they have the majority market share in order to encourage everybody to ship games that have a broken experience in other stores."

Apart from the two rules mentioned earlier, EGS may have a more strict quality and functionality review process. Epic Games Store General Manager, Steve Allison, stated that each game submission will be played for 20 minutes to ensure it launches correctly and matches the game depicted on the store page. Valve follows a similar procedure, but in the past, the company has expressed its reluctance to make subjective judgments regarding quality or taste.

Additionally, unlike Steam, EGS does not prohibit blockchain games. Furthermore, Epic permits developers to utilize their own payment processing systems for in-game transactions, bypassing Epic's revenue cut, while Steam requires the use of the Steam Wallet. Although Steam has decreased its revenue share to 20% for major publishers, it has yet to meet Epic's revenue share of 12%.

You can learn more about Epic's new self-publishing tools here. Also, don't forget to join our 80 Level Talent platform, our Reddit page, and our Telegram channel, follow us on Instagram and Twitter, where we share breakdowns, the latest news, awesome artworks, and more.