Game developers and publishers can now independently publish their games on the Epic Games Store. The head of Epic Games, Tim Sweeney, took the opportunity to criticize Steam.
Who is this about?
- Tim Sweeney is a 52-year-old American and the CEO and founder of Epic Games
- In 2019, Sweeney surpassed Valve’s CEO in a list of the richest Americans
- Sweeney aims to break Steam’s monopoly with Epic Games
What does the head of Epic Games say? According to the American gaming magazine PC Gamer, Sweeney voiced his concerns about Steam in a phone call, stating that the platform has created a problem for the industry.
Sweeney refers to Steam’s multiplayer API “Steamworks”. Valve’s online system does not work in any other store except Steam:
They have a classic lock-in strategy, where they develop these services that only work with their store, and they leverage the fact that they have the largest market share to encourage everyone to deliver games that don’t work in other stores. […]
Tim Sweeney via PC Gamer
Additionally, Sweeney reports on issues he and Epic Games faced with multiplayer games that had limited multiplayer features due to Steamworks limitations:
“We were early hit by this problem with a number of multiplayer games that came to the Epic Games Store. Steamworks did not work in our store, so they either had limited or no multiplayer features, or they were restricted to a much smaller audience in the early days of the Epic Games Store, so there were a lot of multiplayer games that felt really broken.”
Why is the Epic chief talking about Steam? As Epic Games announced, today marks the official launch of the so-called “self-publishing tools”.
The self-publishing tool allows developers and publishers to independently publish their games on the Epic Games Store if the games meet certain requirements (via store.epicgames.com)
That game developers can independently publish their games has also been possible on Steam for some time through the Steamworks distribution program (via partner.steamgames.com).
The difference between Steam and Epic Games is, however, a requirement from Epic Games that demands multiplayer games to enable PC crossplay between the different launchers.
Players should thus be able to play with their friends even if they have the game on a different launcher like Steam, to avoid the issues Sweeney mentioned with Steamworks.
One of the many indie developers who published their game on Steam is YouTuber Belluar. In a video, he recently mentioned the “30% cut” that Steam takes from every sale.
