There are five “notable requirements” to get games onto the EGS

After more than 18 months ofclosed beta testing, Epic’s self-publishing tools for developers are now available for all to use on the Epic Games Store. Previously, Epic had their own internal curation process for publishing to the store, but this changes from today, with developers now having much more control over getting their games onto the EGS. Well, almost.

There are still a couple of “notable requirements” devs will need to follow in order to qualify for self-publishing, which Epicsayare “designed to provide a best-in-class player experience that doesn’t lock players into a single store”.

The final requirement is perhaps the most interesting, though, and most importantly, the one that stands in stark contrast to how Valve currently deal with self-publishing over on Steam. It’s to do with “prohibited content”, with Epic stating the following:

There are more detailed guidelines on their definitions of prohibited content over on theirdeveloper resource site, where Epic also state that if complaints are received about prohibited content on live store pages, they’ll re-review those pages and potentially remove them altogether. Epic’s own self-service publishing flow infographic also includes two review phases before devs can actually launch their game too - first the store page is submitted for a “content review”, and then the game itself receives a “requirement review”. Only once both stages have been passed can devs launch their game, and take advantage of Epic’s 88% / 12% revenue split.

Then again, I also wish Epic was a bit clearer on their own definition of pornography. While their guidelines state they don’t allow any games with an “Adult Only” rating, for example, I just hope we don’t end up with another YouTube situation where LGBTQ+ content getscaughtin thecrossfire.

The big caveat to all this, of course, is that Epicstill allowgames with NFTs / crypto / terrible blockchain nonsense in them (which Valve discourage in their SteamWorks guidelines, althoughsome of these thingsstill clearly still get through from time to time), so I guess the question becomes: would you rather have a storefront with porn but not crypto, or crypto but not porn?

Just thinking about it makes me sigh and put my head in my hands, but hey, I’m heartened that Epic are makingsomeeffort to take responsibility for what’s on their storefront, even if that doesn’t extend to NFT junk right now. Will it prevent the EGS from becoming another cesspit of endless content, though? We’ll have to wait and see.