Epic Games, the mega-publisher behind Fortnite, and the Epic Games Store has said that it’s “open to games that support cryptocurrency of blockchain-based assets”.
Epic has told The Verge that it is willing to work in what it calls a “new field”. It also added that it would “have to comply with financial laws, make it clear how the blockchain is used, and have appropriate age ratings.”
Tim Sweeney, CEO of Epic has also tweeted in support of the idea, seemingly in direct response to Valve’s recent decision to not allow games featuring NFTs to be sold on its Steam platform.
“Epic Games Store will welcome games that make use of blockchain tech provided they follow the relevant laws, disclose their terms, and are age-rated by an appropriate group. Though Epic’s not using crypto in our games, we welcome innovation in the areas of technology and finance.” Sweeney said in a tweet on 15 October
He went on to add that: “As a technology, the blockchain is just a distributed transactional database with a decentralized business model that incentivize investment in hardware to expand the database’s capacity. This has utility whether or not a particular use of it succeeds or fails.”
However, many were quick to point out that this directly contradicts a statement made by Sweeney as recently as September.
In a reply to Twitter user EliBenSasson, Sweeney replied: “We aren’t touching NFTs as the whole field is currently tangled up with an intractable mix of scams, interesting decentralized tech foundations, and scams.”
Sweeney’s U-Turn follows an update to Steam‘s rules and guidelines that reveal that the site has banned games that are built on blockchain technology or allow for NFT and cryptocurrency trading.
This latest move in Epic’s war against Valve to make moves in the PC space follows the revelation that the publisher had spent almost $11.6 million on free games, as was revealed during its heated legal battle with Apple.
In other news, a recent Fortnite update seems to address the controversy surrounding its Imposter map.
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