"Epic Games is now testing a system that will make it easier for developers to self-publish on the Epic Games Store. For users, the new tools mean that the store's library will "grow faster than ever before," the company says.Right now, getting a game approved and published on the Epic Game Store requires working directly with Epic at every step of the process. The company expects the new self-publishing tools to streamline the process, allowing developers to "set up their own product pages, achievements, pricing, offers, and upload builds and updates" on the store.The system is similar to Steam Direct, which allows any developer to submit their game to Steam and publish it on the platform for a fee. For Steam, self-publishing vastly increased the number of games that released on the platform, but was also criticised by users for the loss of quality control, which resulted in an influx of shovelware. Valve's response hasn't been to create a stricter approval process, but to iterate on the filtering tools and algorithms that determine which games users see first on the Steam storefront. Epic says its tools will similarly result in "less dependence" on the Epic Games Store team, though it's unclear whether that means games will still be individually reviewed before they're allowed to go live. The blog post also does not explicitly state whether or not there will be fee for game submission. Steam charges $100. We asked Epic about these details, but the company declined to comment for now."