The Epic Games Store is currently a counterpoint to Valve’s Steam in almost every way—one of the primary ways in which it differs is curation. While Valve literally allows just about anything to be published on Steam (which has led to some hugely objectionable content put on the storefront, only taken down after public outcry), the Epic Games Store is currently curated.
And if we go by what Epic’s CEO Tim Sweeney says, it will continue to remain curated—though Sweeney isn’t sure of the exact methodology to achieve this, especially as the scale and volume of games launching on the platform continues to increase over time.
“We’ll have a quality standard that doesn’t accept crappy games. We’ll accept reasonably good quality games, of any scale, whether small indie games to huge triple-A games, and we’ll take everything up to, like, an R-rated movie or an M-rated game,” Sweeney told PC Gamer. “A GTA game would be fine to us, but Epic’s not going to distribute porn games or bloatware or asset flips, or any sort of thing that’s meant to shock players. The PC’s an open platform and if we don’t distribute it in our store you can still reach consumers directly.
“We’re not going to have something like the console certification process involved in releasing a game, but I think we’ll be aware of the quality of what’s submitted prior to making a decision to list it in the store… somehow. Humans can make those judgment calls, and they’ll be pretty reasonable.”
While I appreciate having more oversight over the store’s contents than Valve’s frankly appalling hands-off attitude, I do wish his response as to how Epic will manage this wasn’t so wishy-washy. Nonetheless, I suppose if nothing else, Epic has the right mindset about this, however—I think they are absolutely correct in not wanting to have an anything goes attitude when it comes towards curation.
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