Epic Games has started to give a ton of money to some developers. These include a French developer team who has released some significant (previously exclusive) games on PlayStation 3 and PlayStation 4!
In the State of Unreal keynote, Tim Sweeney, the CEO of Epic Games, confirmed that their deal with Ubisoft will expand after The Division 2 (which is only available either on uPlay or Epic Games Store): „several major PC releases” are going towards Epic Games Store with its 85+ million users, because The Division 2‘s PC launch was that successful.
We have learned that multiple games are coming to the Epic Games Store, if they are exclusive, we’ll point it out: Ancestors: The Humankind Odyssey (exclusive for a year! Patrice Désilets, Assassin’s Creed creator’s game), The Outer Worlds (it will also show up on the Microsoft Store, as Obsidian is part of Xbox Game Studios, exclusive for a year), Phoenix Point (exclusive for a year! – Julian Gollop’s game, usually credited as the father of XCOM; it got into some trouble with those who crowdfunded the game, as it was planned to launch on Steam and GOG, triggering some refunds), Dauntless (Phoenix Labs RPG, exclusive!), and now grab something nearby: Control (exclusive for a year! Remedy’s new game, set to launch this summer), and The Sinking City (Frogwares’ recently delayed-to-June game, exclusive for a year!).
We mentioned a French dev team in the first paragraph. Well, we weren’t joking to grab something: Beyond: Two Souls, Heavy Rain, and Detroit: Become Human will all be timed exclusives on PC on the Epic Games Store! Quantic Dreams’ plans to be multiplatform are kicking off.
We’re not even at the end of the list yet: Afterparty (Night School Studios), The Cycle (YAGER – it was alpha/beta tested on Steam since September… lol), Industries of Titan (Brace Yourself Games), Journey to the Savage Planet (Typhoon Studios / 505 Games), Kine (Chump Squad), Spellbreak (Proletariat Inc.), Solar Ash (Heart Machine / Annapurna Interactive). We’ll continue after the video…
Sweeney told PCGamer how Epic Games Store will have a quality threshold (which, let’s admit it, is effectively non-existent on Steam): „We’ll have a quality standard that doesn’t accept crappy games. We’ll accept reasonably good quality games, of any scale, whether small indie games to huge triple-A games, and we’ll take everything up to, like, an R-rated movie or an M-rated game. A GTA game would be fine to us, but Epic’s not going to distribute porn games or bloatware or asset flips, or any sort of thing that’s meant to shock players. The PC‘s an open platform and if we don’t distribute it in our store you can still reach consumers directly. We’re not going to have something like the console certification process involved in releasing a game, but I think we’ll be aware of the quality of what’s submitted prior to making a decision to list it in the store—somehow. Humans can make those judgment calls, and they’ll be pretty reasonable.”
What about the Steam friends list data mining accusations? „If you choose to import Steam friends in Fortnite right now—it’s implemented on the launcher side—we load up your Steam file on your hard drive which is your file that you own, which contains your friends, and hashed IDs of your Steam friends are sent to Epic. A lot of other services import Steam friends using similar means. Some access the file, some use the Steam web APIs through the Steam SDK to do it. Data is only sent to Epic with user permission. And then there’s a sloppy implementation which makes a copy of your file before prompting you whether to import your Steam friends, and that’s something we’re fixing and cleaning up. It’s just a manifestation of building all our social features quickly and not enough forethought about how we ought to be doing it. Valve said that that data is data that belongs to the user, and Valve is completely right about that. That’s the user’s data. The user can do with it as they please. They own the data on their hard drive, and if they choose to import it into other programs it’s their right. And I think that’s the fundamental principle that’s at stake.” It means the localconfig.vdf file might be no longer affected badly.
One more thing for the end: now, we can buy Epic Games Store keys on Humble Bundle, including exclusives! One more question: Epic Games Store launched in December. How does Epic have this much money to expand aggressively?
Source:VG247, PCGamer, PCGamer, Dualshockers
