Nothing more disappointing to me than seeing a game I might enjoy… and then it’s only available on PC on Epic Games store. Why can’t it be available on Epic, Xbox game store and Steam? It’s so annoying, like you have no choice but to use Epic… which I would literally do ANYTHING not to use.
As much as I like using Steam, I’m on Epic’s side here. They sue over anti-competitive practices of other marketplaces that take almost triple the cut that Epic does on game sales.
If I were a developer and one platform took 12% while the other took 30%, I’d push my customers to the 12% option no matter how much better the in-game overlay or whatever was on the other platform. Game studios are closing left and right, and that extra 18% is a big deal when games are struggling to actually profit from the development.
I don’t understand why people are so in love with a Steam monopoly. Steam has a lot of neat features, but the main feature I’m looking for in a game is the game itself, and I’d prefer more of the money to go to the companies making the games.
And maybe if Valve didn’t take home a larger profit from game sales than the developers themselves, they’d go back to being a full-time game studio to make their money.
I might have been on epic’s side if they had delivered a storefront/launcher at least as good as Steam, then found they still weren’t able to compete and only then decided to try the exclusivity crap.
They did not. They have a launcher/store that is far worse than Steam or even GOG (which is an accomplishment; GOG’s isn’t all that good and yet they manage to be worse by a large margin), and they didn’t even attempt to provide a better product/service. Instead they just started throwing money in order to secure exclusivity.
It shows all they want is to muscle into the market, not provide anything better for people.
Is a better launcher really worth 18% of the gross value of a game?
If a developer decided to cut 20% of their content, and their excuse was “we want to use that budget towards a better third-party game launcher instead of using it to develop the game” would you be okay with that?
Because that’s what you’re suggesting they do by choosing Steam over EGS.
Consumers are going to use the platform better for consumers. I’m not going to purchase a shitty car because the company pays its workers more.
The thing is gaming is a weird industry where the consumer price is essentially fixed tegardless of platform/marketplace outside of sales.
Ideally, games would cost more on Steam to make up for the increased fees. That would create a market where Steam would probably have to lower its fees to be competitive. And if Steam did that, EGS would need to improve the quality of its service to remain competitive.
Or maybe Steam could be a boutique marketplace where the games cost more but the UU is better, while EGS is an unholy mess of a UX, but the games cost less.
But what we have right now is neither. With the customers being shielded from the price differences, the negative effects of Steam are invisible to most people and the market doesn’t properly function.