One of the big (legitimate) issues people have had with the Epic Games Store’s snapping up of PC games’ exclusivity has been Epic also blocking sales of games via third party key resellers. Given that said key resellers often allow games to be sold at a cheaper cost than their store price, and that every other PC storefront allows them to sell their games, and even consoles – which are otherwise closed systems – allow key reselling on these stores, Epic has looked really bad with this decision. It’s made their rhetoric of “competition” ring hollow when they’re blocking competition.
It seems that they’ve listened to the criticism because during their GDC panel, they announced a measure to address this feedback to at least some measure—the Humble Store will now be allowed to resell Epic Game Store keys, with Epic taking no cut whatsoever from any keys sold this way (presumably Humble will charge the standard 30% revenue cut that it does over Epic’s 12%). Epic will also, to this end, allow players to link their Humble and Epic accounts to allow players to make direct purchases across the two stores.
It’s still not as good as Valve and Steam, or even the three consoles, of course—Epic needs to allow key resales on more than just one reseller for that. But it’s a start, and it indicates Epic is receptive to feedback. That’s good news, because it means the Epic Game Store can only improve from here on.
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