Epic launches self-publishing tools, calls out Valve again: 'Steam has created a real problem for the industry'

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The Epic Games Store is now open for self-publishing, but there are some key differences to Steam Direct. (No porn, for one thing.)

The Epic Games Store is now open for self-publishing. For $100, the same fee Valve charges for Steam submissions, anyone can submit a game for inclusion in the Epic Games Store library. Epic's system is similar to Steam Direct, which Valve introduced in 2018, and will probably result in Epic's library ballooning dramatically over the next year.

The second of those rules is a requirement rather than a prohibition: If you release a multiplayer game on the Epic Games Store and Steam , you have to make it possible for everyone to play together, regardless of where they bought it. Epic offers a free solution for cross-launcher multiplayer called Epic Online Services, but says that developers can use their own online system if they prefer.

"They have 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," Sweeney said."And we were bitten by this early on with a number of multiplayer games coming to the Epic Games Store.

 

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The part where epic wants to not track games but let people find them elsewhere is 1 of the biggest fails they can do as a company... why would anyone want to put their game on a store that makes no effort to promote it steams extra 5% cut more than pays for itself

Nice that he took time off from paying off devs to exclusively launch on his platform to complain about the free features his competition offers.

lol

For starters, SteamInput actually makes controller support less shitty on PC because Microsoft refuses to fix literally anything with Windows. Valve : 1 - Epic : 0

Epic is the problem

He's right but they're also not as bad as they could be so it's complicated.

Tim Sweeney doesn't actually believe that Valve created a problem for the industry, that's not what this is about. Tim Sweeney correctly asserts that Valve created a problem for Tim Sweeney. Good. Well done Valve.

The epic CEO has about as much self-awareness as a rock in my driveway. PC gaming was fine until epic came along and wanted to be the valve killer so they made their stupid store that's terribly run, terribly designed, and terribly animated to sell their terribly designed games

I'm not using your sheit launcher, Sweeney.

Based Timmy boy

He should come back when Epic Store isn't ass.

This is the same guy who wanted to keep NFT's in video games btw.

umm isnt that shit good enough like wtf I aint no steam dickrider but this shit seems like drama

If they're upset that games are exclusive to a service, maybe they shouldn't be buying out games and making them exclusive to their own store.

Isn't this the same guy who just delisted a bunch of games and shut down the online services of even more just so he can eventually relaunch them under his own separately gated service (if at all)

Also, stop trying to make Steam into a villain when EGS has been buying exclusivity, kicking games out for not signing exclusivity, it had the whole Apple store debacle and was/is operating on a loss to undercut competition and steal market share. YOU are the baddies.

'Games published to Steam can opt into an API that makes multiplayer integration easier. My store does not have this feature. This is Steam's fault.'

I literally only have an Epic account to take their free games and never give them a dime, never even added a card to my account. Thanks Epic keep adding stuff I can take for free, and actually spend my money on the Steam store lol.

so, he doesnt like that the steamworks API only works for pc and not other consoles? (unless i read it wrong) lol what

Oh and you're not, huh Epic?

how about you just start providing better systems then instead of or at least in addition to trying to kneecap your competitor cuz, you know, that's how steam won They had a whole talk about it and everything It's a pretty well known talk

Tell them to add Master Chief back to the Fortnite item store you cowards TimSweeneyEpic

coding skill issue

funny this guy claims to be so against steam when he fish flip-flops his opinions whenever he can get the chance to dump on valve. maybe he can make a better store when he finally starts thinking of the consumer first and not the publisher, just a thought. 👁️

Make a game storefront that doesn't suck before talking shit tim.

I gave up on using epic. Used to look forward to getting a free game every week but the launcher is so dogshit I’d rather not ever open it

Yeah it definitely sucks that there's an industry standard for what a launcher should be. If there weren't any, we'd be truly appreciating the full scale of the features on Epic Launcher. Like how ass it is

Maybe place better business practices, options, and maintenance on your lousy launcher, then you wouldn't have to resort to crying and placing blame on a better/successful launcher.

why do I get the feeling that tim sweeney doesn't know what steamworks does like at all

Just because one company was more innovative before you doesn’t mean they created a problem for the industry. You guys just don’t have a good enough service to beat them back; no workshop, no decent friend services, no proprietary hardware, etc.

The Epic launcher is ass, that’s the real problem.

This sounds a lot like 'Valve's API is better than ours and we don't want to bother to improve our own product'

Skill issue

Bruh like 5 people want to use epic and they all commented on this post

Tim Sweeney don't be a jealous and petty bitch challenge: IMPOSSIBLE!

Epic has been ruined from what it once was. ,.|.. this guy

🙏🙏 he cares so much about our data and privacy so much, he decided to 'protect' user's steam data too, without consent. And wants us to use Tencent Cloud instead.

This is pretty pathetic.

Tim Sweeney starting to look like this nigga

He completely ignores the fact that Steamworks offers SDR. A cross-platform technology to protect players from DDOS attacks. For example, if someone plays Destiny 2 through Epic, then the player is protected from DDOS attacks through Steam's infrastructure.

Tim Sweeney being in charge of anything has created a real problem for the industry. That greedy, selfish, anti -consumer piece of crap needs to be quiet for a change.

?

lmao what? They created a real problem for the industry by putting in effort to make a good product? Epic doesn't want to put in effort, they instead want easier competition. It's not fair that others can't compete with their shittier software.

Epics making the right move and I like so far what epics’s guide lines are for a indie game devs like myself coolllllll beansssss

Epic games launcher? Git that trash outta my face Were you guys wouldnt give free games on weekends no one would rrally uinstall it unless they wanna play fortnite as well

There's a solution for that: it's called DRM free 😘

Imagine blaming Steam for being relevant, and then turn back and allow blockchain games in your store🤦

From out of all the people on this planet who could have said this, Tim is DEFINITELY the one who should speak here for sure ....

They should just create a valid alternative then

Epic games is smart in making their competition sound like monopolies but if they cared so much they would be fighting against Microsoft which is trying to monopolise the whole industry, buying out or paying developers not to support Playststion and Mac.

'Please switch to my game launcher, we've been giving away gamed every week for 5 years, please im begging you'

bros salty his launcher is shit

An optional API that developers choose to use to improve their product for people on their chosen platform is a bad thing apparently I guess it's in line with the rest of Tim Sweeney's opinions, largely being 'giving people options is a bad thing' and 'it's only ok when I do it'

Goldberg has an open-source replacement for the Steam API, it's not that hard to replace

There are some good points to this but I don't trust Epic Games and their store. Only stores I use are Steam and GOG.

Funny how Epic is now sounding like Apple 😆

Well that's mighty ironic lmao.

Does that mean they aren't gonna try making a better store than steam?

At least steam isnt partially owned by China and actually has decent support

I guess I won't be buying anything from Epic. I don't fund censorship.

So Sweeney is angry that Steamworks doesn't work on other platforms. Yet, Valve doesn't enforce developers to use the Steamworks API. Most devs implement it to have cloud saves, achievements, workshop or trading cards. Or some like Ubisoft just use their own launcher.

Hey Tim. You know the api ur complaining about allows multiplayer for a lot of players who can't get a dedicated server to just play with friends. I'm sorry your platform is shit and you didn't make any attempt to work with valve to have cross platform use with steams Api. But…

Lol

Hate epic

This is such an L thing to say. If Steam were hated or if Steam made too many bad choices? But since Steam and Valve make good decisions more often than bad? It's why they remain the most used. Meanwhile, Epic is constantly busy BUYING/BRIBING Exclusives/IPs/Sequels constantly.

Steamworks is just optional. Use it or dont use it. You can release your game on other stores too. If Epic store had issues, then they have to build support for it. Tim should look into how steamworks actually works in a game.

TLDR: it makes cross-play almost impossible for most Devs. No matter platform.

Epic just delisted every game in the Unreal series for no reason, IDGAF what he has to think

API are tied to the service, servers from stores or other company, to be really 'free' from any limitations you would need even more, like hosting yourself the servers, like old games did. A browser to see what is available, even local or console ones, do whatever you want.

Idk I think luring devs in difficult circumstances with money only to destroy their game’s relevance (if it’s a debut project, destroy it forever in most cases) is also quite harmful to the industry

Someone play his man some Justin Timberlake - Cry Me a River

Make a better storefront then. Compete.

stay mad ccp

This makes his own brand sound weak. Epic has enough money to burn on app development for their launcher. If they choose to compete with a sub-par client, lacking many features players expect, it is their problem to address. It's a free market. Raise or pass.

Has epic considered making a halfway decent launcher and keeping their games on the storefront?

He's just mad that EGS is shite and not stealing Steam's thunder.

'The problem is that they exist and I dont get all the money, we should stop Valve from existing to save video gaming.'

If people only realized in the beginning that even steam from frowned up. Game Launcher? Wtf is this

A problem they did indeed create; They forced the shitty launchers out of the market, basically. Real effort is finally required to get acclaim.

This man left the PC market pretty quickly during the 360 era, and I can actually understand why for numerous reasons back then. But you can tell he's angry that Valve stuck around and did everything first and is reaping the rewards for it. L bozo

Mate, your launcher literally copied data off Steam without the user and Valve’s permission

Reminded me of Jim Ryan crying over the Activision deal 😭😭😭

Can’t believe I’m gonna say this but I prefer Epic grow and take market share from Steam. I used to view Steam as the best company for games, but after I had a issue that I went to Steam support over, I was insulted and called a liar even with proof of their error. Finally…

Tim Sweeney deleted Unreal Tournament and several other Epic Games legacy games while I can buy every old Valve game on steam right now. He has created his own problem.

He's so salty. Always makes me laugh.

Epic caused a real problem by existing and causing some games to be taken away from steam.

Say the guy that literally buy Games for exclusivity and then, when they not sell enough, something wrong happend to the studio(Volition), SAINT ROW would clearly have selled more on Steam. Also force there 'Epic Online Service' everywhere.

Tim would know all about classic lock-in strategies to be fair so maybe he has a point

Seething, Crying, Throwing up.

8 feet of rope

my answer to this man

Naw lil Timmy, you’re just upset everyone prefers a far superior launcher to the inferior one built off of paper clips and rubber bands you’re desperately trying to shove down people’s throats.

Isn't that the dude from Epic Games who as the team makes Unreal Tournament series, Gears Of War series and Fortnite. I keep forgetting who he was but still there's no point causing a little argument with Valve.

What I don't get about Sweeney is why doesn't he fix the issues with his own stuff first before criticizing other companies that do their shit like 1000 times better 😅

Epic CEO can jog on

Another epic fail.

I'm pretty sure there's a bigger issue somewhere else.

Really rich coming from the company that buys exclusive deals because it cannot offer a product that people actually wanna use

Epic fail launcher!!!!!!!!!!!

Real problem for competition For consumers its great

Epic Games Store is a Epic Flop, hahahahahahahhaaha

He's just mad because he didn't get to it first. He's keeping Epic off the Steam Deck even though it's a open platform because it would indirectly benefit Valve. They could make the EGS and it's backend stuff like anti-cheat compatible but choose not to.

Maybe instead of spending 300 million on free games to get people to use your shitty broken platform... you use that money to fix it? Easy to call out the people who are winning and doing it right

as much as i admire epic games for numerous reasons, everything i’ve seen lately had made them seem pretty cucky to me. like, any company that goes against making games accessible and is quite evidently FOR exclusivity and shit like that r just cucky mccucks.

Why the fuck would I listen to proper business practice suggestions from the guy who owns EAC? Especially when it comes to criticizing 'classic lock-in strategy' considering Epic's constant exclusive pushing.

I am 33 yrs old. I have used Steam since I was 13. I see no problem with them at all. Valve is the best and if they ever do HL3 or TF3 Ill never doubt them again. XD

oh no investors can't scam people quite as easily whatever shall publishers do

okay but at least steam doesnt eat my computers memory i literally only have the epic launcher to play fortnite and it takes 5 minutes to get into the game from clicking on the epic launcher to being on the main menu

yeah i could give two shits what he says.

Cannot beat steam. Steam has spent well over a decade to get to were it is now.

I only use Steam👍

when will this dude shut up and get his employees to focus on improving their bad game launcher.

The guy who pushes exclusivity for games he doesnt publish or develop is trying to say his overwhelmingly better competition is bad for making an API Lol. Lmao even

TimSweeneyEpic pussy

Tim sweeny has a wee weeny

I have a steam deck and don’t use windows or the epic games launcher. Only question is how is it running on steam os these days.

And after saying that, he proceeds with epic store services, which behaves one step away from being malwarelike

The only problem steam has is their quality control with lesser known games

The people who gave the gaming community cancer and found success in taking other peoples' ideas trying to call out theirs betters. 🙄

Valve Superior. Epic Inferior.

In other words: “I don’t want to hire software engineers to make a good launcher :(((((“

Then proceeds to do the exact same thing with the infamous 'Epic Online Services'

I have to admit, Valve need some improvement in the multi player section by providing cross platform play. Also quality control for the game, as Sweeney stated quality over quantity. As much as I like Epic Games Store, steam is still the best. No offense EGS.

In other words: 'MY LAUNCHER IS DOODOO FARTS AND I'M MAD THAT STEAM HAS A BETTER LAUNCHER THAN MINE!!!!'

epic store need to do better to win more player over.

should have played better

steamepic fail

Translation: My launcher is not as good as Steam, so I'm gonna continue to cry about it and call it a 'problem'.

Cry more

TimSweeneyEpic Still crying?

Steam superior, EG inferior.

tl;dr - Our platform sucks. Sorry.

I like how Sweeneys whole strategy seems to be buyoff users with free games and complaining about how steam is an unholy fusion of Satan, Hitler and Stalin. How bout making a product that i want to use, not one that i 100% don't want because it acts like a virus.

How much is Epic paying for these... 'Articles'?

Epic's launcher still has not come anywhere close to being a smooth operating platform. But I tend to agree with most of their non-predatory business practices over bigger ones. Most. poaching for exclusives is kinda dirty, but ultimately a developer choice.

Epic CEO talking about 'classic lock-in strategies' is reaching irony levels never reached before

We like steam screw epic game store, I started with steam owning noobs in 1.6 counterstrike.

Going to be honest. EPIC looks more and more like a Cabal of lawyers trying to control things that don’t need mandated! They just want to suck the money out of the faming industry. (That’s right I said Cabal). Apple and now Steam. Put your money back in the game devs EPIC!

Tim Sweeney has a lot to say but he based his companies engine around Nvidia hardware for over a decade. He could have used Async Compute that AMD had in hardware a decade ago and put Async shading into Unreal Engine getting rid of the shader stutters we see today in UE.

Can't say I can disagree with TimSweeneyEpic, Valve's missing a opportunity to offer more for players by expanding their Steamworks API so boundaries of who plays with who and where didn't exist. Plus, I do miss the days where a game's service died, but didn't become unplayable.

Steams the best epic sucks

He only has a problem because he’s losing

I highly doubt TimSweeneyEpic has the best for developers at heart. I mean, my less-than-satisfactory responses from him and EpicGames regarding megagrants should be enough of an indicator...😕

For those that don't know, Steamworks API is the whole cloud saving, screenshot library, achievements, workshop,... Basically connecting steam with the game, but steam build up so much, it takes alot of money and work hours to get there, but epic want to keep it cheap and simple.

Finally some actual customer friendly shit from Tim's exclusive deals

In other words: 'My launcher isn't as good as Valve's'

Tim is only pushing this issue to try and build Epic's own market share... ...but in this ONE instance I actually agree with him. The Steam multiplayer API should at the very least allow access to multiplayer across platforms and hardware.

'The man who desperately wants to be Gaben says Gaben sucks'.

Not sure about the API but the absolute lack of quality and content control on Steam is dreadful. I'm surprised Valve hasn't been sued yet

He's upset that people are signing on with steam than epic. The whole reason why steam was started was because other publishers were shitty to work with. Valve gave the digital market more freedom at the price of a fee. Tim wants to undo all of that for money.

Doing the man dirty again

He is salty. I am surprised EA doesn't sell salt.

I love it when a company that is famous for forcing their own store exclusivity on people talks about 'classic lock-in strategies.'

Hate the man all you want, hes right about steamworks being cancerous

Wow you guys are really in bed with this nazi. Is this like your 7th Sweeney worshipping tweet in two days?

Epic, they're the ones with the shitty launcher software, right?

How dare valve protect their market share. I’d give a fuck about what Tim S thought if he didn’t show his hand by buying tonnes of exclusives. Pain in the ass to have BL3 stuck on Epic.

I bet his wife uses steam over epic.

Thanks for your valuable input, Tim. Now, how about you stop buying exclusives and preventing me buying those games on my gaming platform of choice?

Maybe focus on making the epic launcher not suck instead of bitching about steam. There's a reason I only log in to get the free games and have never bought a single game on epic.

Maybe if the epic launcher wasn’t complete garbage people would consider using it. Did he run out of exclusives to try and buy up?

The numbers do all the talking. There is a reason why millions of people buy from Steam more than they do from the Epic Game Store. Apart from being first to market and having tens of thousands of games on the store, Steam is now synonymous with PC gaming.

Honestly... I forgot EGS exists. 🤣

If Sweeney keeps up with the virtue signaling the Epic Game Store might one day become profitable

I ain't touching anything Epic related with a 10 foot pole after what they did to Unreal Tournament.

Tim Sweeney, is always the first person to criticise other stores but never his own. Maybe he should take a look at how absolute pish his launcher is, how Fortnite is a gamblers wet dream and then look at all the exclusive titles epic but up. Cretin.

Ha. Epic Online Service has ruined the i dusty, not Steamworks. TimSweeneyEpic, U r nothing but a hyporitical capitalist piece of 💩.

he created a problem for industry not valve he is a disaster

funny he says' Multiplayer games must have crossplay with other PC stores' bring your epic games to steam and watch how quick things change LOL imagine fortnite on steam shit i might even play then LOL

While he's right about steamworks EGS has a lot of issues it needs to focus on too. I'm glad indie games are no longer required to be EGS exclusive. Currently we're in a state where he needs to shut up and show us. Especially after the ill will gained

Cry me a river, wasn’t this the same guy who was bitching about MS UWP was going to ruin Steam back in 2016? And here we are 2023, now bitching about Steam again… He’s mad because the EGS hasn’t turned a profit…

This pretentious corpo douche thinks he can take on Gaben. Steam is apart of PC culture and doing this he's going to make Epic more irrelevant. Ubisoft came back to Steam after going to Epic exclusively after 2019. You seem, Steam will be the only place for PC gaming.

Steam will always be king.

F* Epic. Worst thing that ever happened to PC gaming after DENUVO.

No porn on epic lol never gonna do better than steam

He got a point though. Pc always boast about their inter operability unlike console with exclusive service. Steamworks is, though limited, almost does similar to what console do.

Y'all seem to be on an agenda, this is the second tweet of the same exact article from earlier, just with different tweet text. My opinion still stands though, still don't plan on giving the EGS any moneyas there's not much reason to with Steam & GOG

Valve: Used-to-be-free paid mods with 0 quality control. 0 quality control storefront with the occasional bitcoin miner. Unplayable retro games Based Gaben :D Epic: Free AAA and indie games. Games are guaranteed to work. Better revenue split for developers. Frick you :(

Maybe dude should focus on making his launcher not dogshit before coming after a company that’s launcher is so good it bodies every other launcher out

did home slice run out of exclusives to buy?

This guy sucks

I really respect Gabe Newell because he never ever stoops this low nor talks about his competition in a childish manner.

Isn't he just constantly complaining about everything?

The problem the industry has is non gaming CEOs getting paid by KPI to gouge gamers for little or no value.

He should be apologizing for unreal engine 4. studderstruggle

Nobody likes tim sweeney or his epic lame store

Epic store is even more of a problem

Of course he would say some shit like this

fuck. this. abomination. of. a. launcher.

Isn’t this a bit of a concession that Valve had the better business model by not curating its content so aggressively?

It’s insane that people playing on PC believe exclusives on the platform exist just bc games are on certain launchers instead of others. It’s also insane that people think that’s a bigger problem than games being on multiple storefront but not being able to play together.

if u caint play hgames than wats the point og i thank that allwoin hgames on steam is best part of platform is was cuz u gosta go 2 shady sites or lern japanese for hgames before steam n now u can draw tiddies and git paid for ur hard work

🤢🤢🤢 i see this man i puke

For me, it's a bad look when you spend most of your platform career bashing the competition, but not being able to out do them. I've yet to purchase anything from EGS because they've never given me a reason to do so. I'll stick with Steam and GOG, that's good enough for me.

Timmy trying to tell people how PC as a platform should work, whilst throwing exclusivity clauses around on such an open platform, is hilariously mind boggling.

Look, Tim, nobody cares about EGS outside of Fartnite and the freebies.

Epic games sucks lol I’ll stick with steam

What is going to happen to EpicGames if Fortnite fades away, because I’m pretty certain they lost millions on Metro Exodus exclusivity, and Fortnite is the only thing I think they have going for them. Granted currently it’s going well for them, but what happens if it stops?

Epic Free Games Launcher

Epic games is so far from steam. They are still missing the whole market/trading and inventorys

FFS

He's not wrong, he's just mad he didn't think of it first.

The comments crack me up, like steam doesn't have a million games that require a second launcher on top of steam to launch a game and other BS. All launchers are bullshit. We should own the game outright, not through a digital launcher.

No big loss considering 99.9% of the porn games on Steam look worse than amateur porn mods

Epic has created a real problem for the industry by allowing blockchain games on their storefront. Any company in support of such titles are on a personal blacklist for me, no questions asked.

Lol epic store still a thing

It's those times of the year again. Where i got reminded that Epic Games Store actually exists. Lol

Lol, they're STILL pretending they're above Steam despite being far below.

Me when I put no effort into the actual game client to make it a viable competition to steam and hope forced exclusivity makes people like it

Rent Free

No porn? Well, you just lost my vote mister. Good day!

Tim just seems to have made the last 4-5 years of his legendary career about calling out rival tech companies. Considering Epic's 40% owned by Tencent whose own policies are extremely suspect he might want to climb down off his plinth.

He says that, but he does Epic Exclusive deals. Bare in mind, that means no other PLATFORMS on PC. ONLY Epic. Hypocrite.

Man's salty that his exclusivity deals aren't drawing enough users to his crappy client.

Again... Isn't epic constantly making it so that several games are contractually EGS Exclusive on release? He's not wrong, but a bit hypocritical...

epic allows crypto scam trash on their store so i wouldn't run my mouth if i was them.

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