Epic launches self publishing for its game store

Epic has announced the launch of self-publishing on the Epic Games Store. New tools allow developers and publishers to release games and maintain their store presence directly. These tools are available on the Epic Developer Portal, available to any developer or publisher with games meeting the store’s requirements.

Notable Epic Games Store Requirements

The store is open to all developers and publishers whose titles meet the Epic Games Store requirements. These requirements are designed to provide a best-in-class player experience that doesn’t lock players into a single store. Notable requirements include:

PC Crossplay for Multiplayer Games

Multiplayer games must support crossplay across all PC stores. This ensures that players who purchase a multiplayer game on any store can easily connect with other players, regardless of where the game was purchased. To achieve this, you can implement crossplay yourself, use a third-party SDK, or use Epic Online Services for free. Learn more: enabling PC crossplay functionality

Epic Games Store Achievements

All games onboarded to the Epic Games Store publishing tools after March 9, 2023 are required to enable Epic Games Store achievements if the game has achievements on other PC stores. This helps standardize the player experience regardless of where the game was purchased. Learn more: configuring achievements

Age Ratings for Regional Distribution

The Epic Games Store has partnered with the International Age Rating Coalition (IARC) to help developers obtain ratings directly where required. This service is provided at no cost to you by the Epic Games Store. If your game already has a rating from an official rating system, it must be displayed on your store game page. Learn More: ratings

Prohibited Content

Certain types of content are prohibited on the store, including but not limited to: hateful or discriminatory content; pornography; illegal content; content that infringes on intellectual property you do not own or have rights to use; scams, frauds, or deceptive practices, such as fake games or malware. Learn more: prohibited content.

Game Quality

Games must download, install, launch and function consistently with the assets and descriptions you provide on the game page. Epic reserves the right to reject games that we don’t feel are sufficient in quality and functionality.

Why bring your games to the Epic Games Store?

Access an audience of over 230 million users from all over the world.

Publishers receive 88% of the revenue for the games sold through Epic Games Store with an option to use your own or a 3rd-party payment solution to receive 100% of the revenue from in-app purchases.

Our Developer Portal has an integrated process for obtaining IARC ratings (required in some countries and very useful in others) at no cost to you.

Epic provides professional localization for your game pages at no additional cost. Request this service through a Developer Portal support ticket.

The Support-A-Creator affiliate program allows you to incentivize content creators and amplify your game outside of the store by sharing a percentage of your revenue with them.

For games built on Unreal Engine, engine royalty fees are waived for in-store purchases using Epic’s payment processor. In-app purchases and products using their own payment processor are not exempt from engine royalties.