Feeling Steamed: Fortnite developers Epic Games launch their own online game store

Valve’s Steam is in for some competition, because Fortnite developers Epic Games just launched their own PC game store called… Epic Store.

The store is open now, following last night’s The Game Awards broadcast — and it already has a (small, for the moment) selection of games available. Their gimmick? The Epic Store will offer a free game every fortnight. Get it?

They hope to take on Valve’s popular Steam store with the new shop, but it won’t be an easy run. Epic is offering developers a better deal on sales revenue though, giving developers 88% of revenues and taking just 12%, rather than Valve’s 70/30 split. It’ll eventually offer Android titles as well as PC games, which should put another ding in Valve’s (and Google’s) armour.

Up first in the fortnightly free game lists is underwater exploration title Subnautica, which can be downloaded for free from the store from 14 December.

The store is currently offering titles from smaller studios (so this is an indie gamer’s ideal spot to shop). It’s got titles like Ashen by Annapurna/A44, Hello Neighbor: Hide and Seek by tinyBuild, and Genesis Alpha One from Team17. Obviously they’re punting their own titles, like Fortnite, and the Unreal Tournament remake (which you should really check out if you played the previous one).

We are excited to see how this changes the landscape of the PC game industry — especially if the Epic Store is offering developers larger pieces of the money pie. Hmmm, money pie…