Introducing Epic First Run, our opt-in exclusivity program for third-party developers and publishers on the Epic Games Store. Registration is open through our self-publishing flow in the Epic Developer portal. Additionally, we are kicking off Now On Epic: a new back catalog incentive program for developers and publishers to bring their previously released products to the Epic Games Store. Now On Epic gives participants the opportunity to boost their net revenue from user spending on eligible products from 88% to 100% in their first six months on the store on all payments processed by Epic Games. After this initial six-month run, participating titles will continue to benefit from Epic's industry-leading 88% / 12% revenue split.

The Epic Games Store is home to a global audience with over 230 million players and 68 million monthly active users. Releasing back-catalog content on the Epic Games Store helps reach new, incremental audiences and ensures that the content that our players are looking for can be consistently discovered. Participants can leverage publisher and franchise sale opportunities to maximize this unique opportunity during their participating titles' first six months on the Epic Games Store.

On Tuesday, Microsoft and NVIDIA announced the companies have agreed to a 10-year partnership to bring Xbox PC games to the NVIDIA GeForce NOW cloud gaming service, which has more than 25 million members in over 100 countries. The agreement will enable gamers to stream Xbox PC titles from GeForce NOW to PCs, macOS, Chromebooks, smartphones and other devices. It will also enable Activision Blizzard PC titles, such as Call of Duty, to be streamed on GeForce NOW after Microsoft's acquisition of Activision closes.

"Xbox remains committed to giving people more choice and finding ways to expand how people play," said Microsoft Gaming CEO Phil Spencer. "This partnership will help grow NVIDIA's catalog of titles to include games like Call of Duty, while giving developers more ways to offer streaming games. We are excited to offer gamers more ways to play the games they love."

Epic Games Store, one of the many products of the Epic Games company, is the current number one contender of Steam game store, which used to be Valve's monopoly in the gaming market. Having another contender is nice and competition is always welcome, however, it doesn't seem like running a games store is a cheap venture. In the recent legal dispute between Apple and Epic in California state, we have discovered some interesting details about Epic Games Store (EGS) and its financial background. According to the documents appearing in the court, EGS is not considered profitable until 2027, at least.

Apple has told the court that "Epic lost around $181 million on EGS in 2019. Epic is projected to lose around $273 million on EGS in 2020. Indeed, Epic committed $444 million in minimum guarantees for 2020 alone, while projecting, even with 'significant' growth, only $401 million in revenue for that year. Epic acknowledges that trend will continue in the immediate future: Epic projects to lose around $139 million in 2021." This information shows that Epic has sunk a lot of cash in the store, however, the company expects EGS to become profitable at some point, where the original investment will be returned.

Every now and then, the Epic Games store gets a major discount on popular games. If you have been following the free game deals on the store, you may have seen that sometimes even the AAA-class of games get a free offer and you can purchase them without spending a dime. Today is one of those days where Epic Games store is offering the Control game for free. The offer expires on June 17th, when it again becomes paid offer. If you haven't heard of Control, you can read the the game information below. You can check out the deal here.

After a secretive agency in New York is invaded by an otherworldly threat, you become the new Director struggling to regain Control.
From developer Remedy Entertainment, this supernatural 3rd person action-adventure will challenge you to master the combination of supernatural abilities, modifiable loadouts and reactive environments while fighting through a deep and unpredictable world.
Control is Jesse Faden's story and her personal search for answers as she grows into the role of the Director. The world of Control has its own story, as do the allies Jesse meets along the way. Jesse works with other Bureau agents and discovers strange experiments and secrets.

The ongoing Epic Games vs. Apple dispute over Fortnite on the App Store platform has sprung up some surprising facts. Apparently, Epic has spent a massive $1 billion since September 2019, getting game studios to launch their titles exclusively on the Epic Games Store (EGS). It This sledgehammer fashion of taking market-share away from Steam rides almost entirely on investor money, and the firm's next $1 billion funding round is already underway. Epic aims to have as many as 52 exclusives on its storefront in 2021. The meteoric rise of EGS dates back to late 2018, when it gave away fairly new AAA games for free, a move that cost it $11 million, but generated a large number of new sign-ups to the platform. From here, the store rode on offering game studios a greater revenue share of games sold than Steam does, and additional incentives for exclusives.

(Update 13AUG2020: The game is now available for free on the EPIC Games Store platform, so make sure to go there and add it your basket STAT.)

Here's EPIC kicking up its free game offerings up several notches at once. Sega and Creative Assembly, developers of the user and critically-acclaimed Total War videogames, have announced that their latest release on that series, titled Total War Saga: Troy, will be available on launch day, August 13th, when it launches exclusively on EPIC Games Store. Based on Homers' Illiad, "A Total War Saga: TROY focuses on the historical flashpoint of the Trojan War, bringing the conflict to life as never before."

A caveat: the game will only be available for free in the first 24 hours following launch. Any claims after that will be met with the games' real price-tag. How's that for EPIC Games Store exclusivity deals? Check the games' trailer and confirmation of this promotion after the break.

When Epic Games launched the Epic Games Store back in December 2018 most people wrote it off as a glorified Fortnite launcher which could never compete with Steam's reach and features. While the Epic Games Store is still lacking in features compared to Steam it has come a long way since it's launch slowly adding in new features.

The Epic Games Store surprised many when it offered Subnautica for completely free on the store and so began the tradition of the Epic Games Store's weekly game giveaways which have given away over 100 different games in the last 18 months. While pursuing this strategy of game giveaways to attract new users to the platform Epic Games also secured many exclusives for the launcher which wasn't nearly as well received.

Epic Games has just done something that's sure to garner a lot of attention: they're offering free copies of Rockstar Games' Grand Theft Auto V. Yes, you can stop reading now and go on and grab it; you know you want to, even if you've played it on console already. The game is the latest entry in one of the most legendary franchises in gaming, and as it stands, counts with a 96 Metascore and a 7.8 user score. Even though the game has been released over five years ago, it's still one of the greatest, featuring a live community on its online components.

The Epic Games store has seen continuous updates since its launch in 2018 adding various additional features, now surpassing many other game launchers such as Origin, Uplay, and battle.net in terms of features and hot on the heels of Steam. In the latest update to the platform Epic has added support for five new local currencies, users in Canada, Australia, Sweden, Denmark, and Norway can now pay for games on the launcher in their native currencies. This addition is one of many Epic have been releasing from their public roadmap which lists trending pages, mod support, and offline sign-in all as features coming soon.

EPIC has made available two more free games this week. One of them is the well-known, Bethesda-published and Avalanche Studios-developed Just Cause 4, which sees players diving (sometimes literally) into the open-world city of Solis. Featuring complete mayhem and a third-person gameplay perspective, the game was received to lukewarm reviews (currently stands at 68 Metacritic score) and even worse consumer reception (sitting at a not-so-pretty 4.8 user score).

The other entry is Wheels of Aurelia (developed by Santa Ragione srl), which is pitted as a "immersive road trip" through the 1970's Italian West Coast (in the coherently-named Via Aurelia). The soundtrack and experience, as well as the chance to learn some history and cultural context of 1970's Italy, should be your main expectations while diving into this game; as a gameplay experience, it seems to have left much to be desired, sitting with a Metascore of 63 and a 4.0 user score. You can grab these via the EPIC launcher, as always.

The current quarantine situation can be cut in two ways: as a major setback for your life, or as an opportunity. An opportunity, for instance, to mow down all the games you've got on backburner. To that end, and in case you're running low in Triple-AAA or quirky, interesting game experiments, the EPIC Games Store has now made available for free download both Ubisoft's Watch Dogs and Galactic Cafe's The Stanley Parable. Both offer a distinct gameplay experience, with EPIC thus catering to two completely different gamer demographics.

Watch Dogs is a well-known action-adventure RPG launched back in 2014, set in a fictionalized version of Chicago. Playing as Aiden Pierce, a hacker with a personal revenge motivation, you hack your way through security systems in a somewhat dystopian society. The game was not very well received, standing with a 77 score on Metacritic and a 4.9 user score (in no small part due to the considerable graphics downgrade seen between the showcased version and the final graphics the game shipped with). The Stanley parable, on the other hand, is a quirky first-person exploration game based on a mod to the Half Life 2 engine that seems set on exploring a quantum approach to storytelling. This one features a much healthier 88 score in Metacritic and an 8.0 in user score.

The EPIC Games Store has been a great source of free weekly games, with such offerings such as Observer, The Witness, and Surviving Mars all seeing their way into players' libraries without spending a penny. Now, a juggernaut of last year's releases comes our way as well in the form of Kingdom come: Deliverance, the immersive open-world sim from Warhorse Studios. If you'll remember, our own W1zzard has taken a look at this game, and even in its release state, found it to be hugely engrossing. Now, with months of active bug fixing behind it, it should be an even better, more polished experience.

The other title on offer, Aztez, is described as a hybrid beat-them-up and turn-based strategy game, with striking black, white and red visuals (and developed by Team Colorblind, so that might have something to do with the aesthetic choice). The game actually looks like a lot of fun, and the visuals are what they are already, so why not get yourself another game for your already endless waiting list?

Cut from the digital storefront cloth as you will, the EPIC Games Store has come to stay. EPIC has just announce that its digital distribution platform has achieved over 100 M subscribed users (which is different from active users, so mind the gap). That is still a success by any metric, since the digital games storefront was such a one-sided market before EPIC entered the fray - you'd be forgiven for describing the PC games distribution platform network as being composed of "Steam and the others".

Through platform exclusivity deals for new PC launches, a more enticing profit split between developers and games that are available through its store (with its headline and exclusive-grabbing 88-12 percent revenue split), monthly game giveaways and the power of Fortnite, EPIC has said that the EPIC Games Store alone generated $680 million in revenue thus far. Of that amount, Epic says $251 million represents sales of third-party games. part of that revenue has been channeled back at gamers - $23 million has been distributed in coupons and discounts toward game sales. According to EPIC, the nine most successful games in its platform are World War Z, Borderlands 3, Untitled Goose Game, Metro Exodus, Control, The Outer Worlds, The Division 2, Dauntless, and Satisfactory.

Steam has revealed the games that sold the most on the platform for this year of 2019. While Steam's own numbers don't represent the entirety of the PC market - considering other digital storefronts such as GOG, EPIC Games Store and publisher-exclusive stores like Origin also have a relevant market share - this does let us take a considered peek at the PC gaming landscape. Steam's top sellers also includes top grossing, where games that have store-bound skins or extras are also taken into account).

Steam's Platinum lineup includes all the hallmarks of PC gaming: online experiences such as Warframe, DOTA 2, PUBG, and the Elder Scrolls Online, through strategy experiences such as Civilization VI and Total War: Three Kingdoms. Considering that Destiny 2 also made it in the platform, many gamers actually enjoy that experience - it is unclear if Steam considers every redeem from the Blizzard store into the Steam Store a sale, but if not, it's mighty impressive that a game that released on October 1st.

Steam may be losing some luster in the digital game distribution arena with the quantity and quality of heavy players that have appeared since its inception - I'm looking at GOG and the EPIC Games Store especially. However, Steam continues to be the service that offers the largest library of purchasable titles. As such, if you don't have a backlog of games to play already (don't lie, you do have them, but we won't judge if you buy some more), now is the time to make the jump.

The biggest discount percentage I've seen, so far, is that for Rise of the Tomb Raider, which cuts a total of 85% from its listing price. Discounts range from 20% through to that (apparent) ceiling, with franchises such as the Dark Souls Series (Dark Souls 3 for $15 (75% off), Dark Souls 2 for $9.99 (75% off), and Dark Souls Remastered going for $23.99 (40% off). The Dishonored franchise also sees massive cuts from their list prices, at 70% for the original and 75% for Dishonored 2 and its Death of the Outsider expansion (how I love these games). The Master Chief Collection, however, isn't on sale - it's still in pre order, you know how it is. But maybe one of these days you'll get that one (though it already is a steal at its launch price for the quality of games you're getting). Go on, feast your eyes and murder your wallet. We're cheering for you.

The EPIC Games Store, the digital storefront most PC gamers love to hate, has made available two free gamers for those who want to simply login to their store. The first game is Metro 2033: Redux, the updated Metro 2033 version that uses its sequel, Metro: Last Light's graphics engine. Besides the updated graphics, there are numerous quality of life improvements in the game, making it the definitive version of it to try out (if you have been living under a rock, or just haven't had any time for gaming in recent years whatsoever).

The other game is Everything, a procedurally-generated game that simulates mechanics and systems of nature. There is no objective in this game - the objective is just to immerse yourself and your time on a leisurely approach to space and planet-bound systems. Just log into your EPIC games account via the store and you can add both these games to your digital library (did I mention they're available for free?)

Control is one of the better single player releases of this year already, and has been enough of a success for Remedy and 505 Games to launch a content roadmap stretching all the way to 2020. The game is being served on PC exclusively through the EPIC Games Store, which, besides offering developers higher revenues than Steam, has also launched an all-out campaign to secure high-profile exclusives such as Control and Metro: Exodus (even if some of them are timed exclusives).

Now, an Italian earnings report from 505 games highlights that the developers received a lump, $10.5 million upfront from EPIC; according to the report, "Revenue comes from the computer version of Control (...) The game was released on August 27 but the structure of the marketplace who requested the PC exclusivity has made possible to gain the revenue starting from this quarter." It appears EPIC is offering a safety net for developers in exchange for the exclusivity deals, paying upfront the amount of revenue developers expect to receive from the games' sales throughout the PC platform. In this case, the $10.5 million correspond to a total of 200,000 individual sales of Control. Until that number is achieved, EPIC keeps the full revenue from every sale. Any units sold starting from 200,000, and the revenue is split between the developer and EPIC. It's a win-win, really: EPIC gets more and more traction and publicity on its store, and developers guarantee they get the minimum amount they'd expect to earn by selling the game across the full spectrum of PC marketplaces.

The annual Steam game sale celebration is here, in the form of the Summer Sale. The now legendary platform for games consumption on the PC ecosystem has announced that from today through July 9th, thousands of games are experiencing price cuts that can go up to 90%. If you're planning to get your game fix, and it isn't an EPIC Games Store Exclusive, you can try and pick it up here at a discounted price - provided you can actually reach the site. Storefront price cuts are Devil May Cry 5 (-34%) and Assassin's Creed: Odyssey (-50%) but you can also grab Ni-oh, for example, at a 60% discount. The new Summer Sale now features a Steam Summer Grand Prix mode, where users can band together in groups to complete milestones (including unlocking quests and achievements) that will grant users games from their wishlist as they achieve "Pit Stops".

As it stands, it seems there have been some connection issue,s with users reporting "502 - Bad gateway" errors. For me, the page simply appears blank, with not even a single error report shown (after I finished writing this piece, I tried the steam store page again, and it seems to be working - at least for now.

Update: A clarification was sent out earlier today where Epic said that they won't stop supporting Rocket League on Steam, as they never could actually do, since legions of players that had already purchased the game on that platform would pick up their pitchforks with a vengeance. However, wording on Epic's clarification leaves much to be desired, and seemingly confirms that the game will not be available on Steam:

"The PC version of Rocket League will come to the Epic Games store in late 2019. In the meantime, it will continue to be available for purchase on Steam; thereafter it will continue to be supported on Steam for all existing purchasers. (...) "Rocket League remains available for new purchasers on Steam, and long-term plans will be announced in the future."

Epic Games has announced the acquisition of Rocket League developer Psyonix, which created one of the most addictive non/Battle Royale game of recent times. The move by Epic will see the games- introduction to the Epic Games Store, with platform exclusivity confirmed for late 2019 / which means that anyone looking to purchase the game on a PC/centric digital storefront will have to go to Epic's, since Steam will be leaving the vendor equation.

Epic CEO Tim Sweeney has come out with an interesting commitment: that EPIC would stop hunting for exclusives in the PC platform is Steam were to match them in their 88% return to developers for each game sold. Being a developer themselves, Epic games have certainly looked into creating their own storefront as a way to escape the clutches of Steam's cut in the digital, PC distribution market (a move that had already been done by the likes of EA and Ubisoft, if you'll remember). A commitment to stop hunting for exclusives (and thus segregating the PC games offering across different platforms) is a clear indicator of Epic's mission with the Epic Games Store: to bring back power and returns to developers such as them (while taking a cut from the profits for themselves, obviously).

Check out after the break for the full content of Sweeney's remarks regarding their Games Store and the problem with Steam. I, for one, don't see much of a problem with virtual segregation of games across multiple PC-bound platforms - one of the strengths of PC gaming is actually the ability to install multiple applications that increase functionality, after all. But if the end game of all of this is simply to give more back to developers and Epic's move facilitates that by forcing Valve's hand in matching them for fear of drying profits - then so be it.

The EPIC confrontation with Valve has become a hot topic in recent months, as a veritable Exodus of titles have migrated to the greener, 12%-limited cut that the EPIC Games Store takes from publishers who put their games on the EPIC Games Store digital storefront. Mostly, user reception of EPIC's practice of securing mostly one-year timed exclusivity deals for games that would otherwise also be available through Steam has left a sour taste oin gamers' mouths, as it is seen as a forced way for EPIC to fracture the PC gaming space.

However, a former Valve developer has come forth to say that in his view, Valve's 30% cut was already way behind the times, and was actually "killing PC gaming". The train of thought is that Steam itself changed Valve from a software company to what mostly amounts to a service provider, with Steam serving as a veritable digital money printing machine, that stole focus from games to games publishing, due to higher margins and much lower development costs. It's interesting - and logical - to assume that the reason an Half Life 3 never saw the light of day was because Valve had its revenue stream well secured in Steam. Why invest for a game that could be a flop, when you can just take a 30% cut from other developers' efforts?

Not all news coming from EPIC covers its EPIC Games Store - though according to the relative attention they've been garnering with the constant scooping up of PC timed exclusives, perhaps it should. This piece of news, alas, covers the company's unreal Engine, which has been one of the hallmarks in games development for a while now, being used for a number of disparate games such as the gears of War games, or even a relatively obscure, Xbox 360 exclusive title, Lost Odyssey. At GDC 2019, EPIC showcased version 4.23 of its Unreal Engine, with particular attention to its improved destruction and physics engine, which they've aptly named "Chaos".

The unthinkable, never-before-seen, has happened: games that were developed as PlayStation exclusives are finally making their way to PC (outside of any PS Now streaming shenanigans). Developer Quantic Dreams has announced at GDC 2019 that Heavy Rain, Beyond: Two Souls and Detroit: Become Human are coming to the PC platform. And if you didn't read that title, you probably wondered, and yes: they are exclusive, for a period of one year, to the EPIC Games Store.

It seems that the EPIC Game Store exclusivity saga is still coming strong, with not one, but two AA games coming to PC that are exclusive to the new games distribution platform. Obsidian's The Outer Worlds is likely one of the most anticipated RPG games this side of Fallout 76, and Remedy has always been known for great single-player games that push the boundaries of the medium - and sometimes wreck those boundaries completely, as it happened with Quantum Break.

Now, both games are known to be part of EPIC's Game Store in a time-limited exclusive format for one year after launch, much like has happened with Metro Exodus - though here there is no sudden Steam departure to be met with. The Outer Worlds will also be available in Microsoft Store, true (Obsidian is now part of Microsoft's Game Studios, remember?).

We reported earlier this month how Steam users were resorting to review bombing of the previous game entries in the Metro franchise, mostly driven by Deep Silver/Koch Media's decision to take Metro Exodus over to the Epic Games Store for a timed exclusive. 4A developers commented on how this could impact further game development on the PC platform, and that ended up being more kindling to the fire despite some language communication gaps in play. Metro Exodus has since launched, and has been getting reviews from the media and players alike, with the former mostly agreeing it is a good game, but not necessarily as good as the previous entries were. The latter, however, is where things got interesting- especially on Steam.

For those who were able to add the game to their Steam library before it got moved, and there are a lot of those too given Metro Exodus rose to the top spot of best selling titles once that news broke, the game appears to be more than satisfactory at first glance. While many were expecting users to review bomb the title negatively again, the current status of the game on Steam is "Very Positive" as far as user reviews go. Discussions have been mostly on point as well, until you dig deeper. The most helpful reviews, as rated by other Steam users, are really just a dig at the Epic Games Store, with language used that is less mature than the game rating itself. Newer reviews continue to do the same, so perhaps this was an attempt by many to appease the game publisher by leaving positive reviews of the game, but still making it more about the Epic Games store than the game itself. Not the best way to go about things, but it is still better than review bombing the game.