Epic further details their store plans for 2019

[Remij 4,670]

https://www.unrealengine.com/en-US/blog/epic-2019-cross-platform-online-services-roadmap?utm_campaign=Oktopost-2018-12+General+Campaign&utm_content=Oktopost-twitter&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter

 

Quote

Successfully launching and operating a live, online game requires a suite of services that go far beyond the functionality of a traditional game engine. These services are expensive to build, test and harden in real-world conditions, but once operational, are relatively inexpensive to scale to more games and more users.

 

At Epic, our goal is to help game developers succeed. Throughout 2019, we’ll be launching a large set of cross-platform game services originally built for Fortnite, and battle-tested with 200,000,000 players across 7 platforms. These services will be free for all developers, and will be open to all engines, all platforms, and all stores. As a developer, you’re free to choose mix-and-match solutions from Epic and others as you wish.

All services will be operated in a privacy-friendly, GDPR-compliant manner.

 

Epic’s Online Services
The service launch will begin with a C SDK encapsulating our online services, together with Unreal Engine and Unity integrations. We’ll start with a core set of features and expand over time.  Specifically:

 

• Cross-Platform Login, Friends, Presence, Profile, and Entitlements (coming Q2-Q3 2019 to PC, other platforms throughout 2019): Provides the core functionality for persistently recognizing players across multiple sessions and devices; identifying friends; and managing free and paid item entitlements. This will support all 7 major platforms (PC, Mac, iOS, Android, PlayStation, Xbox, Switch) to the full extent each platform allows per-title.
• PC/Mac Overlay API (coming Q3 2019): Provides a user interface for login, friends, and other features in a game-agnostic, engine-agnostic way.
• Cross-Platform Voice Comms (coming Q3 2019 to all platforms): Epic is building a new in-game voice communications service supporting all platforms, all stores, and all engines, which will be available for free. (For developers needing an immediately-available voice solution, check out Discord, Vivox, TeamSpeak, Ventrilo, and Mumble.)
• Cross-Platform Parties and Matchmaking (coming Q3-4 2019 to all platforms)
• Cross-Platform Data Storage, Cloud-Saved Games (coming Q2 2019)
• Cross-Platform Achievements and Trophies (coming Q3 2019)

 

The services described above are just our first steps. As you can see from our game and engine efforts, we’re also working on further support for user-generated content, enhanced social features, anti-cheat, and more.

 

Reliability

 

We operate our services primarily on Amazon Web Services data centers throughout the world to bring the high reliability and wide international reach required by the next generation of online and socially-connected games.

 

Connecting People

 

We connect developers and players across all platforms, and respect existing platform relationships and player accounts. For example, Fortnite runs on 7 platforms that are fully interoperable; the game requires no login on console, and supports multi-platform login via Facebook, Google, Xbox Live, PSN, and Nintendo accounts, in addition to Epic accounts; and supports Twitch account linking.

 

Besides these existing account and service integrations, we’re eager to work with partners on further efforts to connect accounts, gaming services, and cloud services for a more seamless experience.

Stay tuned for more information over the next few months.

 

They're going all in.  I wonder how Steam is going to react?  

 

One could argue that Epic should have waited a bit longer to announce the Store until they had some of this up and running, but nobody is being forced to use it yet.  Anyway, this has been a long time coming for Valve.. hopefully they make some changes and improve their client and foster some parnerships with developers that actually matter and no shitty asset flips. :)

 

 

[James Skywalker 528]

The  epitome of epic.

[Teh_Diplomat 2,054]

However in the short term, Subnautica going to be free in two days  

 

One of those games on my (ever expanding) wishlist I never got around to playing yet.

[jehurey 3,227]

They were going to make it a soft launch, no matter what. If they attempted to offer everything on day one, they would've had problems and people would see the launch as a failure.

 

Its better for them to succeed in smaller steps and the userbase grows during the next year.

 

Its not going to be as rough as Steam 2004-2006 was, but it doesn't surprise me that its going to take them about 9-12 months to roll this out.

 

Just fucking give us the Unreal Tournament games for free, at this point. That's how they can test their multiplayer features.

[Remij 4,670]

1 minute ago, jehurey said:

They were going to make it a soft launch, no matter what. If they attempted to offer everything on day one, they would've had problems and people would see the launch as a failure.

 

Its better for them to succeed in smaller steps and the userbase grows during the next year.

 

Its not going to be as rough as Steam 2004-2006 was, but it doesn't surprise me that its going to take them about 9-12 months to roll this out.

 

Just fucking give us the Unreal Tournament games for free, at this point. That's how they can test their multiplayer features.

Haha, well, I'm pretty sure hundreds of millions of people are testing their multiplayer features right now with Fortnite.

 

But you're absolutely right about them having to slowly roll it out and make sure things are good instead of throwing everything to everyone at once.  They know that the game against Steam is a long one... It's going to take time for people to come around.. and if Steam offered all this shit day one and it was all broke.. that would be worse than currently not having the feature, imo. 

 

And yea, I'm pretty sure they'll be giving the Unreal games as well as old classics of theirs out for free.  They're giving away 2 free games every month.  Shadow Complex was free (way back when I snagged it from their launcher before it came to Steam)

 

I'm sure they're going to be throwing *lots* of incentives for people to start using their client and poking around the store.

[Remij 4,670]

One of the developers from Satisfactory made a video answering questions about their decision to move to the Epic store.

 

 

 

So the Epic store is completely DRM free (up to devs) and after you download Satisfactory, you don't even need the launcher to play the game, unless you want to play online with the multiplayer features, then you have to sign in obviously.  I've heard it was the same with other games that are on the store.

[kaz 2,439]

what did he do to his hair? half smurf? he looks like people didn't laugh enough at him.

[Teh_Diplomat 2,054]

4 minutes ago, kaz said:

what did he do to his hair? half smurf? he looks like people didn't laugh enough at him.

Dyed hair is the neck tattoo for those that are woke.

[JonDnD 2,608]

Will probably be bigger than Steam in 2020 . RecuckEra members WBO 

[Remij 4,670]

1 hour ago, Jon2B said:

Will probably be bigger than Steam in 2020 . RecuckEra members WBO 

I got banned for 3 days.