New World Interactive President On the Current Reaction to the Epic Games Store

The Epic Games Store seems to be always in the center of controversy and we wanted to see what the studio behind Insurgency thought about the feedback and if that impacts the future release of their games. Prima Games recently sat down with the president of New World Interactive, Keith Warner, to talk about the current state of the Epic Games Store and what needs to happen before they utilize that resource for their games. 

Sitting down with Warner during the Calgary Reboot developer’s conference, we asked about what he and his team thought about all of the controversies concerning the Epic Games Store and backlash developers seem to be facing for choosing this platform. “I think it’s too early for me to personally give you input on it. I think EGS is still trying to work out the kinks,” said Warner to exclusively to Prima Games.

“Cross-play is a big question mark. One of the things that’s important to us is being able to extend our matchmaking system from what we currently have if we were to move on to EGS, so that’s a big consideration technically for us. They have some proof of concept. They’re adding some games that make some sense, but it does bifurcate the audience unless you can have cross-play. And so bifurcation of the audience is not beneficial because you’ve got one guy who wants to play with his buddy and he’s on Steam and the other’s on EGS.”

As to whether or not they will utilize this platform for themselves in terms of sales, he added “Until they solve that in a way that really works, it’s going to be very hard for any game like ours, which is a multiplayer game, to commit to both. Otherwise, you split your audience. That doesn’t help either audience because part of our game being successful is having servers filled.”

With their new studio in Calgary to consolidate their team, it looks like the future is bright for the teams behind the Insurgency franchise. You can learn more about what the team has in the works with our previous coverage here, including what’s going on with their newest addition to the developer family.