Epic Games is Epic

If you didn’t already love Epic Games for their weekly free games (sometimes daily free games for special events and holiday's), then maybe their latest venture will steal your heart!

Epic Games has been around in one form or another since 1991. It started out as Potomac Computer Systems by founder and CEO Tim Sweeney and has constantly been improving. Currently their selection of games is growing (just over 1500 games at the time of publishing) and, in my opinion, they are the only ones effectively competing with #Steam. While Steam has over 50,000 games in their catalog, #EpicGames’ latest venture is sure to steal an immense developer base away from the digital game distribution titan that is Steam.

One of the great features of Steam is that anyone with the know-how can publish a game. With a one-time $100 fee per game, independent #developers can upload a game to Steam’s expansive library. Epic Games had a similar feature, but gaining authorization to publish your game took extra steps and often discouraged developers from jumping through the hoops to try and make a few sales. This changes now.

Epic Games launched a revamped developer portal last Thursday (March 9, 2023) that gives developers a lot to consider. Mirroring Steam’s $100 upload fee, Epic games is offering an 88%/12% revenue split in the developer’s favor (as opposed to Steam’s 60%/30% cut). The benefits are certainly comparable. While Steam has a much larger active user base (currently averaging 62 million daily active users), Epic Games is almost exactly halfway there with 31 million active daily users. But when you factor in the added incentive that developers will make more per sale, we could potentially see most of the small independent creators making the switch to Epic (or at the very least selling on both platforms).

While this isn’t likely going to bankrupt Steam and set Epic Games up to be our newest monopoly, this could, however, be a great thing for #indie gaming. When Steam first launched Steam Greenlight (August 30, 2012) indie game development skyrocketed from an average of 10 games per month to around 275 games per month. Likewise, when Steam cut Greenlight and launched Steam Direct in its place (June 13, 2017), development jumped from 275 to an average of 500 games per month (source).

With Epic Games launching what could be considered their version of Steam Direct, it will be interesting to see what happens to both Steam and Epic’s publishing count. Regardless, we’ll be

keeping an eye out on both platforms to find the hidden gems that each has to offer! Because, of course, while big-name games are typically outstanding, indie #games and small developers are often the trend setters in the industry (since larger developers don’t want to take risks expanding outside what is currently working for them). Which is why I am glad Epic is doing better about supporting prospective developers.

Who knows, you may even see one of our own while you're looking for games! Our lead technician has been working on a game of his own for some time #LostLegend (currently on Steam). If you’re into classic RPGs and supporting small developers, it’s definitely worth checking out! You can even follow his progress over time and gain some insight into what exactly it takes to create your own game.