If you are an indie developer creating PC games, it has just become easier to publish your title to the Epic Game Store thanks to new self publishing features. Details of the new feature from the announcement blog:
We’re pleased to announce the Epic Games Store is now open to all developers and publishers through the launch of new self-service publishing tools in the Epic Developer Portal. These tools will help developers to efficiently release games, maintain their store presence directly, and reach a growing audience of over 68 million monthly active PC users. Games built on Unreal Engine and released on the Epic Games Store are exempt from engine royalties.
As to reasons why you would want to publish to the Epic Game Store:
- Access an audience of 68 million monthly active PC users from all over the world.
- Developers receive 88% of the revenue for the games sold through Epic Games Store with an option to use your own or a third-party payment solution for in-app purchases to receive up to 100% of the revenue generated from in-app purchases.
- Our Developer Portal has an integrated process for obtaining IARC ratings at no additional cost to you.
- Epic provides professional localization for your game pages at no additional cost. Request this service through a Developer Portal support ticket.
- The Support-A-Creator affiliate program enables you to incentivize content creators and amplify your game outside of the store by sharing a percentage of your revenue with them.
- For games built on Unreal Engine, engine royalty fees are waived for in-store purchases using Epic’s payment processor. In-app purchases and products using their own payment processor are not exempt from engine royalties.
In addition to the announcement blog, more details are available here, with the following being the criteria for publishing to EGS:
- PC Crossplay for Multiplayer Games Multiplayer games must support crossplay across all PC stores. This ensures that players who purchase a multiplayer game on any store can easily connect with other players, regardless of where the game was purchased. To achieve this, you can implement crossplay yourself, use a third-party SDK, or use Epic Online Services for free.
- Epic Games Store Achievements All games onboarded to the Epic Games Store publishing tools after March 9, 2023 are required to enable Epic Games Store achievements if the game has achievements on other PC stores. This helps standardize the player experience regardless of where the game was purchased.
- Age Ratings for Regional Distribution The Epic Games Store has partnered with the International Age Rating Coalition (IARC) to help developers obtain ratings directly where required. This service is provided at no cost to you by the Epic Games Store. If your game already has a rating from an official rating system, it must be displayed on your store game page.
- Prohibited Content Certain types of content are prohibited on the store, including but not limited to: hateful or discriminatory content; pornography; illegal content; content that infringes on intellectual property you do not own or have rights to use; scams, frauds, or deceptive practices, such as fake games or malware.
- Game QualityGames must download, install, launch and function consistently with the assets and descriptions you provide on the game page. Epic reserves the right to reject games that we don’t feel are sufficient in quality and functionality.
You can learn more about self publishing games to the Epic Game Store in the video below.