After Steam announced to remove all NFT games from their store, Tim Sweeney and Epic Games used the opportunity to once again put the Epic Game Store in the spotlight. Sweeney, CEO of Epic Games, announced that their game store would welcome NFT and play-to-earn games.
Epic Games wants to welcome innovation in the areas of technology and finance. However, Sweeney noted that blockchain games need to follow relevant laws. In addition they need to disclose their terms and the games need to be age-rated by an appropriate group. However, don’t expect Epic to introduce NFTs into Fortnite. That’s something they don’t want to do yet.
This doesn’t mean that developers can just launch their play-to-earn games on the Epic Game Store. Self-publishing is currently being tested in closed beta, and Epic Games chooses games on a case-by-case basis. However, Epic Games wants to compete with Valve and their Steam platform. Therefore, by allowing what Steam blocks, they gain favor.
Earlier this week…
On Friday games distribution platform Steam announced to remove all blockchain games. Therefore Age of Rust will disappear as well. Game studio SpacePirate Games said that Steam will remove their game as they no longer allow crypto tokens and NFTs.
Steam doesn’t want game items to have value in the real-world. As a result they will miss out on a new and exciting new gaming ecosystem. It’s also worth noting that Steam’s position on this is a bit of a double-edged sword. Because the company makes money from the sales of expansion packs, and also allows trading in game assets. However, allowing content as NFTs would undermine those revenue streams.
