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Epic Games have now officially announced their own store, which is certainly going to be one to keep an eye on.

I've been saying it for a while, especially after being privately shown screenshots of their newer launcher that Epic would be doing their own store. I was right on the money—for once.

Soon we'll launch the Epic Games store, and begin a long journey to advance the cause of all developers. The store will launch with a hand-curated set of games on PC and Mac, then it will open up more broadly to other games and to Android and other open platforms throughout 2019. 

Emphasis mine, because that could indicate Epic finally moving towards properly supporting Linux. I mean, apart from Windows, Mac and Android - what other open platforms are left that would be worth it? Linux. Apple have a very locked-down platform on mobile, so I would be doubtful of it going there. Same with the consoles, they're locked down.

The interesting thing here, is that Epic quite rightly have a massive pull in the industry. Fornite, only available through their launcher is the number 1 game in the world right now. Everyone knows what it is and so it's going to give Epic Games a good chance to be a very big store.

Not only that, their revenue share is 88% for developers, which is massive compared to most (better than Steam's). On top of that, if you're using Unreal Engine for your game Epic will even cover the 5% engine royalty in their cut. Although, to be clear, they state their store will be open to any game engine.

This is going to be a massive kick up Valve's backside to do better at everything. I'm all for it, competition is healthy even if I do groan at times at "yet another launcher". Epic have been doing good work with their community, so hopefully we will be able to get in on this next year. Heck, if Fortnite came to Linux—my son and I would be over the moon with joy. But I don't want to get too ahead of myself there…

See their announcement here.

What are your thoughts?

Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
Tags: Misc
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152 comments
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Alm888 Dec 4, 2018
Quoting: x_wing
Quoting: Alm888Now, for the second part: in fact, GOG does have regional pricing which most of the time is the same as on Steam™.

No, most of the time it's not. Mostly because Steam sets prices in local currency, while GOG keeps everything in USD.
Well, now, this is simply a lie.
GOG neither keeps everything in USD (value-wise) nor enforces USD as a currency.
Kossak Dec 4, 2018
I play fortnite with my son too! Only because of this game I need to keep windows on both of our computers.
0aTT Dec 4, 2018
Quoting: liamdaweRubbish. Blizzard unbanning people, then banning some again only this last week (as noted on Reddit) is not Blizzard supporting Linux in any way. Don't see something that isn't there. Blizzard don't support Linux, anyone saying otherwise is just...*sigh*

Sadly, you'd be right.

Quoting: 0aTTThey helped Wildcard for example with the ARK Dev Kit which, of course, never was ported to Linux. Plus Ark is a ugly mess on Linux thanks to Epic and Unreal Engine. And Life Is Strange based on Unreal Engine 3.

Most of the ports based on the Unreal Engine are construction sites.
Quoting: liamdaweGiving a dev a little help with something, doesn't change anything. Wildcard own ARK, Wildcard are responsible for the Linux version of ARK, not Epic.

It's not about a little help for the developers. The mod support depends on it:
https://www.playark.com/workshop/

Quoting: liamdaweI really don't know what you're trying to get at. You just seem hellbent on disliking Epic Games with some sort of bias that's showing through very clearly.

Bias or not. We already have to bypass them together with other rotten fruits:
https://github.com/ValveSoftware/steam-for-linux/issues/5638

With the Unreal Engine there are by far the most problems:
https://github.com/ValveSoftware/steam-for-linux/issues/5638#issuecomment-442359828

I'm sure that option in Proton will come. Otherwise people will use Lutris.

I'm not counting on Epic and these are the reasons. You asked for it.
Liam Dawe Dec 4, 2018
So uhhhh https://twitter.com/TimSweeneyEpic/status/1070040588739862531?s=19

See his second bullet point reply, notice the smile emoji too. Pretty nice hint that.
Pikolo Dec 4, 2018
Quoting: rcaridade145For me the biggest asset of Valve against any other store is SteamPlay. No other store, company, allows you to code once, deploy in Mac, Linux, Windows and in the future Android.
I was under the impression that MacOS isn't supported in SteamPlay. Has that changed, or was Mac support something they intended to work on after DXVK worked well on Linux?
tuxutku Dec 4, 2018
there is a possibility that even the competition is increased and indie developers gone to epic games, epic games can just stop supporting linux altogether or not support enough at all, in the worst case scenario valve will be not a huge platform and epic games forget about linux and we back to 2013
devs will not care about linux because how bad epic games launcher on linux will be , or will it be ever updated after epic games conquer the indie gaming???

TLDR: there is a small possibility that epic games can damage linux gaming or destroy it, but that's a small chance

why am i thought about this in the first place?

I thrust more to hit a bomb shell from world war 1 with hammer than epic games :O
wvstolzing Dec 4, 2018
The other open platform is obviously OpenIndiana, specifically, 'The Hipster Distribution'. That's because they're planning to implement 'cloud saves', and they want to leverage the flexibility of ZFS snapshots for that purpose.


Last edited by wvstolzing on 4 December 2018 at 9:02 pm UTC
mylka Dec 4, 2018
Quoting: GuestThat explains the recent Valve royalty cut...

Valve is very greedy and lazy. And sadly they don't show signs of improving. They will only really try to change their ways when it is too late, as is always the case...

you say that after all they did for linux (client, steamOS, wine/proton, dxvk, mesa) for free
Whitewolfe80 Dec 4, 2018
Eh theres already origin uplay they competetion just not under linux
wvstolzing Dec 4, 2018
Quoting: Whitewolfe80Eh theres already origin uplay they competetion just not under linux

Epic is planning to sell other companies' games too, and they offer 'competitive' percentages as to what the respective 'cuts' will be. I'm not sure about 'Origin' (haven't used it in ages); but on their storefront, ubisoft doesn't sell 3rd party games.
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