Epic Games Store welcomes blockchain games, crypto, NFTs

Steam just banned all games dealing with cryptocurrency, blockchain, or NFTs. These games could find a new home on Epic's digital storefront.

Ever the contrarian to Valve's business models, Epic Games says it won't issue a wide-sweeping ban on blockchain games. These types of video games have been controversial due to their cryptocurrency and NFT payouts to players. These rewards have tangible real-world value that violate Valve's core developer guidelines and also have somewhat-messy legal and financial implications for storeholders.

Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney isn't ready to shut the door on blockchain games, however. The company tells The Verge that it's interested in helping mature this fledgling landscape and potentially explore new opportunities for growth (and disruption). Rules and regulations will need to be established and strictly enforced so there could be a messy period of adaptation and learning for games-makers and store operators like Epic.

"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," Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney said on Twitter.

"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."

Many games-makers are interested in blockchain. Electronic Arts and Ubisoft are both investigating blockchain, however their use-cases remain somewhat unknown. It's possible these paths could be used for monetization or distribution methods for new in-game content.