Epic Games Store has officially launched self-publishing tools!
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If Epic had announced this back in 2018, then it would have probably been exciting for a lot of developers. But it is 2023 now. Epic made a huge mistake by not welcoming small indie developers from the start.
Is anybody really excited about this news from Epic at this point? The Epic launcher seems to only really be useful for people who play Fortnite (or Genshin Impact) or people who make games with UE4 or UE5. I doubt there is a significant group of game players who buy games from the Epic Game Store but not from Steam.
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It is still a good thing, though.
There ARE large groups of people who would be more likely to use EGS than steam.
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That’s hundreds of millions of people.
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if you can sell a $20 game to a few thousand more people that’s a years salary.
I only skim watched the video, but if it is as convenient as it looks, seems like a no brainer to throw game on there to.
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This is the other big thing. Anyone who’s had to set up a store page on Steam knows how much of an ordeal that is compared to what Epic’s just displayed here. Store management is one of the worst parts of the Steam dev experience.
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yeah i dread having to do anything in steamworks. makes me feel like im lost in maze every single time. at least the support is usually helpful and responsive.
I looked at the Epic Game Store stats page:
https://store.epicgames.com/en-US/news/epic-games-store-2022-year-in-review
There are 230 million PC users that have installed the Epic launcher. That sounds very impressive at a glance. However, I am guessing the vast majority of those installs are by players who only play Fortnite or Genshin Impact. Many of those users probably never bought any games through the Epic store.
I am very curious to see how the Epic game store does compared to Steam for small indie games. I am guessing nearly all of the Fortnite and Genshin Impact players will probably ignore all of the indie games coming to the Epic store this year.
At a glance, it seems that way, but I doubt very many small indie games will get thousands of additional sales through the Epic game store. If users want to buy a game, they will probably buy it through Steam instead of Epic.
if there is no drawback to add the game there and its convenient, why wouldn’t you test it out and see? Rather than guessing?
like i said, i only skimmed it. Is there any drawback besides a small time investment? Its not either epic or steam, right?
i’ll actually look into it myself later, though i’m sure answer could be found quickly right now for anybody interested
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For my next game, which I plan to ship later this year, I am actually planning to release it on both Steam and Epic. But I am guessing that nearly all of the sales will be on Steam.
Developers can put their games on one or both platforms. Epic has a requirement that all multiplayer games on the Epic store must support crossplay with other PC game platforms that the same game is released on.
I am also curious how many developers will port their entire Steam back catalog to Epic, and what the results are for that.
I’m planning on looking into it, but its really a case of how awkward the integration will be at this point.
Im guessing that using photon means the MP integration is already done.
This, it is absolutely appalling how bad it is to deal with steam on pretty much any aspect of development.
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Definetly worth looking into if you already ship to Steam, Itch, etc. 
You guys forgot about giveaways. That’s one of the main reasons why people bothered installing the launcher. As a Genshin Impact player, I never needed the Epic Games launcher for it.
And tbh regular giveaways made me very cautious about buying games there, because there is a real chance to get them for free therefore save some money. So yeah, while I would try to publish games there in addition to steam (because why not), I wouldn’t expect much from it.
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There is also a risk, that if a game lands on both stores at the same time, people will be inclined wait for potential give away eventually.
Personally I would consider publishing on Epic, as extended release, only after Steam salles fades out. Otherwise there is potential to loose many sales.
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I mostly appreciate Epic Games from the context of competition. It is extremely important that there is competition to keep everyone focusing on the customer’s best interest so that they can maintain their grip. Otherwise, a monopoly just won’t bother innovating or going out of their way to make the customer happy. I think Epic Games has helped slightly on that front.
I doubt anyone would ONLY buy games from Epic Games Store because Steam is so firmly entrenched in the space, and it just has more games right now. But this is a smart choice to bring parity between the libraries. Still, one of the draws of Epic Games Library was that it wouldn’t be inundated by shovelware games. I think Steam’s done well in keeping shovelware from drowning out good new indie games. I used to not be able to find little gems in the ocean of shovelware. And I’ve gradually noticed that I don’t have that problem as much anymore.
I think Epic will continue to want to bring all aspects of their product up to snuff with Steam, and once they do, their very favorable fee system is potentially going to begin taking serious chunks from Steam - or will force Steam to lower their fees to match, which will be even better for the developers and gamers.
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Nobody actually cares about this in numbers large enough for it to matter. Sales on itch.io have been increasing for ages, Steam has had market dominance and continues to see growth despite this being an “issue” for five years now. Shovelware is not a meaningful issue despite some people making very vocal fusses about it because people never actually see it. It’s never high up in search results, it’s never in the top sellers, it’s never on the front page, and the only time people learn about it at all is when people go trawling for it to make youtube videos to dunk on it.
I cared about it. I know a lot of people who cared about it, personally. In the end, it’s anecdotal either way. But I didn’t watch Youtube videos about the problem. I experienced it first hand as I, myself, tried searching for new Indie games in Steam. Though, as I said, it has gotten much better, and is no longer an issue for me.
World populace is 7.8 billion. Steam only has 120 million active monthly users. That’s assuming the stats are real, of course, and not inflated, as steam charts display a value that is 4 times lower, and at least 2 million people seem to be focused on hamster wheel games, which are CSGO, DOTA, Apex, Destiny, PUBG and Rust. In this scenario, alternative platform is a good thing, as t here are a lot of people which are not on steam, and only a small fraction of populace is participating.
Another thing worth considering is that at least some store fronts decided to play politics and cut off fairly large regions from their user base. Steam is one of those, although it didn’t go all the way, like some other services did.
Epic Store has several advantages compared to steam. There’s no community nonsense to deal with, no idiotic meme reviews, you can focus on games. Community on steam stinks. It is a cesspool, and the site would’ve been far better without it. Marketplace also doesn’t smell well.
Epic Store discounts also worked, for example, it made better offer for death stranding and RDR2 at the release date.
So, in this scenario, “nobody cared” is your opinion. it is definitely not a truth, as many people did. Steam did not capture entire gaming market and never will - it is too small for that. And from a game developer perspective, it makes sense to register your game on ALL platforms that exist. Because every single one of them may bring you extra revenue. People that are interested in your game, but do not like the platform are missed opportunity to get extra money.
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