Epic Games Store launches self-publishing tools for game devs and publishers

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Epic Games announced it is bringing self-publishing tools for game developers and publishers to the Epic Games Store.

Tim Sweeney, CEO of Epic Games, and Steve Allison, head of the Epic Games Store, said in an interview with GamesBeat that the tools represent a major milestone for the store that should enable many times more game developers and publishers to reach larger markets with their independent games.

Sweeney also said the store reaches an audience of 68 million monthly active users, up from 34 million in 2022. To date, the store has had 230 million players. With these tools, developers can now have a chance to reach that audience more easily and publish their games at lower costs.

Sweeney said he believes that tools will make the Epic Games Store more competitive than its rival Steam, which has about twice as many users and enabled self-publishing years ago, first with Steam Greenlight and then with its replacement Steam Direct. When Steam enabled self-publishing in 2017, the number of games released per years on Valve’s service skyrocketed, Sweeney said.

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“We just want to help developers build awesome experiences. We think that if we have enough of these services to choose from, then we’ll be successful,” he said. “It’s on us to make our services attractive enough that developers choose to use them, rather than forcing them through payment terms, like we’re fighting in the case of Apple.”

Now it’s Epic’s chance to enable