Epic Games opens doors to indie developers with self-publishing feature on Epic Games Store

Independent game developers will now be able to self-publish their games on the Epic Games Store, according to a blog post by Epic Games.

The move is part of the company's efforts to provide a platform for developers to showcase their work without requiring a publishing partner. This development also once again includes Epic Games’ signature 12% commission, which is significantly lower than the industry's leading player, Steam, which charges 30%.

Significance

In a blog post, Epic Games emphasized the significance of this move, stating that "Independent developers have been important partners to Epic since the early days of Fortnite, and that partnership continues to this day," .

Epic Games will also require that any game published on its store have cross-platform compatibility with other PC platforms.

Guidelines

Furthermore, Epic Games has stated that illegal content, copyrighted content, scams, fake games, and malware are strictly prohibited on their platform, while emphasizing that Epic Games has no need for pornographic content and will not allow it.

Achievements

Moreover, Epic Games Store will require publishers to use the platform's achievements system if the games on other platforms have achievements as well.

The Epic Store has been around since 2018, but achievements were only recently added in 2021. With this move, it’s obvious Epic wants Devs to really start using the system.

Fee

A $100 submission fee is also required by the platform to cover game judging. The company has stated that the Epic Store's age rating will be free.

Time will tell

It will be interesting to see if this new self-publishing feature will attract a lot of indie devs, because while Epic Games has a lower commission rate, a lot of its users are purely there for the free games and don't spend money, so only time will tell if they will be able to compete with Steam in any way.