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…
What are your thoughts?
Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
But with more successful competition on the store side it can get some very quick.
If Steam really goes down the drain there is at least the hope that Valve gets back developing fantastic games again. So many good Valve games have not being developed just because Steam was/is such a damn cash cow.
I hope they bring Fortnite for Linux. Especially kids like that. Canadian children, too.
Quoting: liamdaweI think people need to look outside the bubble for a moment. Look at what happened with Steam, we didn't think it was really coming and it eventually did. At that time, Valve also had nothing on Linux.
Why are people instantly counting Epic out, when the situation is the same? Like I said in the article, there's no other "open" platform left - it's got to be Linux.
Not read all the post so forgive if already been pointed out.
I give some reasons why some are counting them out(Me included)
I remember this game called UnrealTounament 3 that we were apparently getting on our platform! Am still waiting despite Ryan had finished the port, yes I was one of those fools that had bought it too.
There Unrealengine which is now usable on linux mostly down to the community still has no launcher/store UI
Then there's what appears to be their most successfully game to date, Forteninght! and guess what, no linux client.
So liam you can understand why most are writing them off.
But lets be real here, it's well known that Epic is near as damnit a MS studio and has for a number of years.
Hope am wrong and they do support linux but I'll not hold my breath!
I can see absolutely zero reason to be so shady on the subject unless they're trying to hide that they don't care for a platform. I believe that there may have been some interest in Linux in the beginning of the development but that has vanished the moment Tim Sweeney stopped freaking out about the Windows store.
It is most likely that the Linux build of UE4 was targeting professional applications such as machine learning (like the one shown in yesterday's demo by Nvidia). They never had plans to release a single game on Linux and probably will never do. Let's not forget that their flagship game, Fortnite, is available on 7 different platform, 5 of which are Unix based. At this point, not shipping the game to Linux is very intentional.
I would like so much to be proven wrong. I would like so much for Epic to show support like they did when they released UT99 with a Linux version. If this is some sort of marketing move, it is the dumbest one I've seen but I don't think it is one. They didn't announce Linux support simply because they don't want to support Linux at all.
I do consider the Unreal Engine to be one of the most advanced pieces of tech ever created but their current stance regarding our platform is dishonest and disgusting.
wit_as_a_riddle Dec 4, 2018
If it isn't on Steam or GOG I'm not interested. I started pirating games on C64 - started buying games because Steam is such a great platform for me. I'll never lose or damage the discs, don't have to keep track of boxes or manuals. I have over a thousand games in my Steam library, but if publishers want to keep making their own stores I have no problem pirating again. Already looks like I won't be able to get Elder Scrolls 6 via Steam so guess what? I have a VPN, I'm not gonna buy it. Steam provides a service I find valuable, GOG has inspired my love for their resurrection of old games, and for being DRM free. What do these other publishers have to offer but scattering my library of games across more platforms, more passwords and logins, less consolidation, more bugs. NO! I won't buy it, I'll just pirate.
Last edited by wit_as_a_riddle on 4 December 2018 at 10:16 pm UTC
Quoting: rcaridade145I 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?Nothing has changed so far, in fact they have been removing Mac references from the Proton documentation that were once there.
I also don't see the point.
- Apple deprecated OpenGL, which to this date is the only API for which working D3D7-9 implementations exist, and their implementation is too old to support D3D11.
- Apple does not support Vulkan, none of the VK->Metal translation layers are able to run DXVK yet, and even if they did, performance would probably be terrible in most cases.
- Apple dropped support for 32-bit toolchains, and seem to be making it harder to run 32-bit stuff in general. Really bad news for Windows games because pretty much everything released before 2015 is 32-bit only, and even some modern games are 32-bit.
Last edited by Kristian on 4 December 2018 at 10:40 pm UTC
Quoting: GuestCount me at the other living creature in the galaxy who did not know what fortnite is.
i do not know Epic's boss well but i have read people calling windows an "open" platform compared to -for example- iOS or any walled garden. So, no i am not sure at all he means Linux.
Besides some of the tweeted quotes seem to indicate he is clueless about Linux. Not hostile, but clueless.
Their announcement distinguishes between "PC, Mac and Android" on the one hand hand and "other open platforms" on the other hand. So it is almost certainly not referring to Windows, since that is likely covered by the "PC" bit of the first part.
QuoteSweeney told Ars that the company plans to "start small" and will "sometimes fund developers to release games exclusively through the store"
Heh, that's not a promising start.
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