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Epic Games' Steam Rival Store for PC Games Now Live

Epic Games' Steam-Rival Store for PC Games Now Live

By Rishi Alwani | Updated: 7 December 2018 12:20 IST

Highlights

It will offer two free games each month
Subnautica will be the first free game
This will be followed by Super Meat Boy

The Epic Games Store is now live. Announced earlier in the week, it's the Fortnite creator's attempt at taking the world's biggest PC digital storefront Steam head on. At the moment the offerings are sparse, ranging from indie fare like Supergiant Games' Hades to Epic Games' own titles like Unreal Tournament (for which its halted development in favour of focusing on Fortnite) and Shadow Complex. And it seems that Epic is borrowing a page out of EA's book by making two games free each month. This is not too dissimilar to EA making select games free on its Origin store. The first two games slated to be free on the Epic Games Store are Subnautica and Super Meat Boy from December 14 to December 27 and December 28 to January 10 respectively. And yes, it has its own downloadable client called the Epic Games Launcher.

Epic is giving all developers on the Epic Games Store an 88 percent share of the revenue. A part of this is due to how well Fortnite is doing and Epic seems hellbent on sharing its good fortune.

"As a developer ourselves, we have always wanted a platform with great economics that connects us directly with our players," said Epic Games founder and CEO, Tim Sweeney in a prepared statement. "Thanks to the success of Fortnite, we now have this and are ready to share it with other developers."

What's more is, it will be available to "additional games and other open platforms throughout 2019."

Safe to say, the company is referring to side loading the Epic Games Store on Android just like how Fortnite is playable on Google's OS.

How Epic manages developer expectations will be a point of concern. With the company taking all of 12 percent, how much effort it puts into curating, discoverability, and sustaining an active user base in its first few months will be telling of its longterm strategy. It also begs the question: what if Fortnite stops being popular? Will it still offer the save revenue share? Either way, the PC games space just got a bit more interesting.

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