Epic Games Store and the company's CEO Tim Sweeney have been pretty busy lately, not least over the recurring need to explain that Tencent and China do not own Epic, and the latest news is that the store will support game key sales.
Replying to Twitter enquiries, Sweeney said that Epic "wholeheartedly support key sales for non-exclusive games", which is good news for those who thought the store will be completely walled off.
While this means that third-party retailers will be able to sell Epic Games Store's keys freely, this only covers the games that are not exclusive to Epic.
Asked why they won't allow for The Division 2 keys to be sold by third-party retailers, Sweeney said that Ubisoft signed for the game to be a co-exclusive on UPlay and Epic's Store, and that's how both companies intend to proceed.
He stressed that "Epic Games seeks exclusive games in order to have a unique lineup of games so there's another reason for gamers to come to [their] store", much like the strategies of Netflix and Amazon for instance.
Sweeney was once again criticised for the seemingly meagre set of features of the Epic Games Store but he insists that the company wanted to launch it as soon as the core features were in, rather than wait for a later date.
This, he claims, is part of the reason why Epic are going for exclusives, because competing with Steam on features alone isn't quite a winning strategy, as many storefronts have learned by now.
After yet another barrage of criticism over the perception of the Epic Games Store dividing PC gamers, Sweeney said "I understand. I'd rather have one single game library and movie library too. Hopefully some day all of these stores, including ours, will be replaced with a 100% open digital commerce ecosystem giving developers an even better deal than 88%. Till then, we need competition!"
Ubisoft
Also, for the sake of shortening future discourse on this issue, be it on Reddit, Twitter or elsewhere, if we may be so bold as to advise a bit of research before accusing Epic of being a Tencent-owned company who send user data to their Chinese overlords. Seriously, for every sensible discussion there's ten one of these misinformed, yet incredibly vocal "contributors".
