Epic Games, the Unreal Engine and Fortnite developer, has revealed the list of games that is now available with the launch of its store today. The company also said that throughout 2019, its store will offer one free game every two weeks.
Epic Games recently announced a games store meant to compete with Valve’s Steam and the DRM-free store GOG Galaxy on the PC, as well as Google's Play Store (in 2019). The store is meant to be more developer-friendly, with a generous 88/12 percent revenue split model in the game developers’ favor.
At the launch of the store today, the company revealed the initial titles that are either currently available for purchase or will be soon. They are:
- Ashen (available)
- Darksiders 3 b (available December 14)
- Hades (available)
- Hello Neighbor: Hide and Seek (available)
- Genesis Alpha One (coming soon)
- Journey (coming soon)
- Maneater (coming soon)
- Outer Wilds (coming soon)
- Pathless (coming soon)
- Rebel Galaxy Outlaw (coming soon)
- Satisfactory (coming soon)
- Subnautica (available for free between December 14-27)
- Super Meat Boy (available for free between December 28-January 10)
- World War Z (coming soon)
Gamers will also find game editors for some of their favorite games available in the store:
- ARK Editor
- Bus Simulator 18
- Conan Exiles Dev Kit
- Dark and Light Editor
- Hello Neighbor Mod Kit
- Mars 2030 Editor
- PixArk
- Robo Recall Mod Kit
- Showmaker Dev Kit
- Squad Editor
- Unreal Tournament Editor
- VR Funhouse Editor
Huge Potential
The launch of Epic Games’ store isn’t particularly large, with only a handful of games available and a handful more being made available “soon.” Add to that the fact that Steam has a 15-year lead that even GOG hasn’t been able to completely erode. However, GOG has also stuck to its commitment on only supporting DRM-free games, something many developers may not find appealing, despite the fact that virtually every PC game’s DRM code seems to be cracked in the first post-launch week. Furthermore, GOG seems to offer similar revenue share to Steam (actually worse now, after Valve published some new changes to its revenue share model).
Epic Games on the other hand has better name recognition with mainstream gamers, due to both its popular Unreal Engine gaming engine, as well as the even more popular Fortnite game. The company can use that name recognition to attract gamers to its store in a way that GOG can not. Moreover, it should be only a matter of time before Epic Games’ bold and aggressive revenue share model, which is unmatched by any app store, PC or mobile, will get developers to rush to the store.
If Epic Games plays its cards right and can attract a significant number of gamers and game developers to adopt its store, that could create an avalanche effect that makes it easier to attract both gamers and game developers to the store in the future.
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