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We really haven't heard much about the game for literally years now. It's out there. It's playable. There isn't much content, but it existed in a state that you could, realistically, play some matches in it. It's also like, super dead. Epic's CEO Tim Sweeney told PCGamer as such.
"Unreal Tournament remains available in the store but isn’t [being] actively developed," Epic CEO Tim Sweeney told the site. "We’ve recently worked with GOG on making classic Epic Games titles available and we’re planning to bring more of them to the store in their original glory."
Where did it all do wrong? Well, you see, there's this game called Fortnite. Maybe you've heard of it. It's apparently doing fairly well for itself. So well, in fact, that Epic pretty much focused most of their attention on it. I can't say I blame them in the slightest. Unreal used to be the big thing but Fortnite has come along and is the new hotness. Maybe Unreal will have another time to shine, but that time isn't now.
Epic has also allocated a lot of time towards developing a new Steam competitor. The company announced yesterday that they will soon launch the Epic Games Store, a new digital distribution platform that will give developers 88% of all revenues. This is a huge increase over the standard 70% that Steam gives developers on their platform.
The Epic Games Store will offer a hand-curated selection of games for the PC and Mac. That alone will probably entice many consumers to check it out, especially those who are tired of seeing the countless money grab titles that appear on Steam.
Epic will also have a "Support-A-Creator" program that will reward YouTube and Twitch content creators for highlighting a developer's game. More about the store can be found in an interview between Tim Sweeney and GI.biz.
The answer i guess is to release on both, and if something else comes along and steals Fortnite's thunder Epic may lose all momentum, similar to how people only really log into Origin to play EA's exclusives.
Open question, do you think some developers might be put off releasing on Epic's store due to the audience it currently has?
If i was making a strategy game for example, i'd want to put it in front of all those Total War players on Steam, because i might think Fortnite players wouldn't care at all.