Epic Games Store adds self-publishing support to better compete with Steam

Epic Games Store adds self-publishing support to better compete with Steam

The Epic Games Store is going to add a lot more games to its library of titles. Today, Epic Games announced it will allow developers to self-publish their games on the store for the first time. Previously, Epic Games invited developers to add their games to the store.

The company's blog post outlined the steps that developers will need to take to add their games to the store, via the Epic Developer Portal. In summary, developers sign up for an Epic account, pay a $100 fee for each game, and then go through the submission and approval process. Epic will not approve submitted games that have certain content, including titles that have pornography, content that's already been copyrighted by another party, and any fake or malware-based games.

In comparison to Valve's Steam service, which takes up to 30 percent of a game's revenue, The Epic Games Store only takes 12 percent of a game's revenue. In fact, developers have the option of using another payment system, which means they can keep all of the revenue. If a game submitted to the store uses Epic's Unreal Engine, Epic will waive any engine royalty fees for in-game transactions that use Epic's payment system. Also, any games that include online multiplayer must support crossplay if the title is available on other PC stores, including Steam.

With this move, the Epic Games Store will definitely gain a lot more titles and should be able to compete better with Steam. The big question is whether the storefront will be able to handle a huge increase in its game library.