Since Epic launched its own game store there has been a fair amount of discussion among the community. Some people like the fact that Steam is a convenient one-stop-shop for buying and playing games, and we've seen a vocal backlash from certain quarters to new stores opening up, such as when EA and Ubisoft launched their own respective platforms on PC.
That was also the case with the Epic Game Store, especially when the company snagged an exclusive deal for Metro: Exodus, a game which has two predecessors already on Valve's platform, prompting some people to review bomb those old games on Steam.
While Epic CEO Tim Sweeney acknowledges that this breaking up of the status quo hasn't been easy, he stands by the decision and, in an interview with GamesIndustry, he highlights how Metro performed "way beyond our expectations."
"Metro Exodus far exceeded even Steam projections in sales, and this really proves that it's about the games, not about the stores," he confirmed.
During the same interview, Sweeney once again pointed out that Epic's move is designed to break up "the 70/30 stranglehold that's pervaded the industry for more than a decade [...] Changing the way that games are sold is a big disruption to everybody. I understand that."
He later continued: "Ultimately, this is about making the industry a better place, starting with the terms available for developers. I understand gamers don't see that. They don't see the hardship of making a payroll and seeing the store suck out 30% of the revenue from it. It can be jarring to see the industry is changing in ways that are typically invisible to us as gamers."
In the same interview, Sweeney also talked about the recent furore surrounding the way Valve and Steam handled the controversial game, Rape Day. Echoing comments made to Gamereactor by another Epic rep, Sweeney explained how the company plans on curating its store moving forward.
"We are going to maintain a reasonable quality standard for games," he told the site. "It'll be open to games of all sizes, but not the junky asset flips or shock controversy games that are built just to make noise. PC is an open platform; there are lots of stores, so I don't feel like any particular store has a moral obligation to carry low quality or highly controversial projects."
When asked if the store will have a greater focus on curation compared to Steam, Sweeney summed things up by saying: "Absolutely. This needs to be a human process that takes quality into account so the customers can trust us to supply good games."