Gaben isn't going to last forever. But honestly the only other good games storefront is GoG. I'll continue using Steam for as long as it's still good.

Gaben has been hands off at valve for a decade. He's off breaking world records with research submersibles. Playing with his rubber duckies in the bathtub.

Both Valve and Epic are private companies. I still trust Valve over Epic, but I think technically Tim Sweeney has pretty much full control over Epic as well (for better or for worse).

Don't fix what ain't broke.

That's because you are not in a position to produce and sell a game.

As a user it sure is the case but as a developer you are in a position that you either have to take their 30% cut or accept that you are selling way less

The fact that pretty much immediately after epic launched their store steam lowered the cut for big publishers tells you that they are fully aware that 30% is too much to be reasonable but they completely could get away with that because Devs just didn't have a choice.

Because of epic that now changed since even if you don't actually sell more games you at least can get a guaranteed profit as if you sold those games that you miss out on by not being on steam.

Sure the way epic is doing it is not good but I really don't see another way how a significant number of buyers would ever come to another store. That didn't work for EA, that didn't work for Ubisoft, that also didn't work for GOG where you actually own the game without DRM and not just a license to play it as long as the server is allowing you.

People are fundamentally lazy and hate changing their routines - that's why forcing them into buying at your store is necessary if you want to get them to switch.

Rest assured, you didn't miss anything with the latest Saints Row. It was decent fun for about 20-30 hours, but it felt like much less of a game than any of its predecessors. I got the impression that the idea was to restart the franchise back to square one with minimal features so they could sell them back to us in future installments.

Linux gaming has come so far. I don't even run Windows anymore. Especially with how much open source AI stuff I use.

This and the paid exclusives mean I haven’t, and won’t use EGS out of pure spite.

Gog has support problems on some windows games too. Also they mark games run via dosbox as windows, which is annoying when you specifically want to find an older windows game that also had a dos release. Even with those issues, gog is still my goto because at least my games won't be full of denuvo securom etc. and nobody else seems to remotely care about the really old harder to find games. I'd be scouring ebay for old discs if not for gog.

I mean that's the same side that steam is using their monopoly for, too

For the users it's definitely the most relaxed option - but as a developer if you choose to not put up with steams 30% rule you are fucked.

The fact that pretty much immediately after epic gained traction steam announced cheaper rates for bigger publishers tells you that they definitely are aware of how 30% is too much

Personally that's why I buy all my games on gog if possible even though I have a Steamdeck and that makes stuff more complicated.

People denying steam has a monopoly are probably also denying other fundamental truths that would imply that they had to change their lifestyle (climate change anyone?)

it's the paypal problem

sellers everywhere fucking hate paypal

but they all still use it because buyers fucking love paypal

💯

Although, I can imagine supporting Epic is annoying. Unlike even GOG, they don't have their own support mechanism like a forum. I can see why someone would release on Steam (and hence stuff like GMG and Humble) and even GOG but not Epic. Example Baldur's Gate 3, which released on everything except Epic. Although in their case Larian commented that the decision to not release on Epic was specifically to not show support for their exclusives-everything stance. Hence on everything except Epic.

Oh that's another really good point: Epic trained the consumers to open Epic weekly to get free games, then close it again. It's a weird thing to be known for.

Sure, had them cornering the sellers market worked out - unrealistic as it was in hindsight - then having the buyers already all have the store installed for the free games would have been a genius way of getting more and more people onto the store. But it did not, and now it has just cemented the Epic store as a place you do not spend money on!

Man the thing I hate the most about fortnite is that it killed UT4...

Oh, don't mistake me preferring Steam (and GOG, for example, who have an actual value proposition to me as a consumer - unlike Epic!) to "Valve worship". They're simply the least bad option, but of course they're all huge corporations. Realistically though Valve has actually surprisingly little bad given the amount of money and market control they have, so eh... for now, I'm happy buying about half my games there (usually ends up that way, though I prefer GOG for games also releasing on that).

steam is good and egs sucks. it's not worship, just consumers voicing their preference for a better product.

I remember when Valve and Steam was the great enemy in the early 2000s.

Everyone hated how buggy it was and needing it to play Counterstrike.

it's a big circlejerk, it happens. everyone has the exact same opinion but also wants to feel like they are making a valiant statement in opposition of the bad thing

it's all a massive oversight of course, statisticly everyone here is likely going to outlive Gabe Newel. and when valve goes public someone else will control that monopoly.

While I can understand the difficulty of trying to come up with competition to a pre-existing and dominant storefront, they went about it almost entirely the wrong way. They underestimated consumers' aversion to change and overestimated the value their own launcher provided.

Everybody and their mother used Steam at the time, and it provided a whole lot more than just a storefront and icons to click. When Epic launched EGS, it offered absolutely none of that. Without any social aspects or significant consumer buy-in to their ecosystem, it had no staying power. People—myself included—would go to it to play a shiny new free game until it stopped being fun, then fuck right off back to Steam to play our other games with friends. If they had spent more time cooking up the EGS ecosystem into something more similar to XBL or PSN before trying to attract consumers en masse, they likely would've been pretty successful. They could've even just decided to partner up with (or buy) NexusMods and integrated a mod manager, and a lot of us would've had a good reason to prefer EGS over Steam for some games.

Instead of doing something to make their ecosystem more appealing, though, they used paid-for exclusives to make other ecosystems less appealing. It was an obvious attempt to herd consumers into their ecosystem, and it backfired spectacularly. Before that, most people were either indifferent or liked them as a company due to their legacy and/or Unreal Engine. These days, I see a lot of bitching about "timed exclusives".

The reason that it's so hard to compete with Steam is that Steam just does what it does so well.

I don't have much desire to change my primary digital storefront because there isn't really much of anything more I want from a digital storefront that Steam doesn't already provide. If the quality of Steam's experience declines at some point, I would welcome competition, but otherwise, why would I bother switching to another service when I don't really have any complaints about Steam?

Besides, the TV/movie streaming service market has already demonstrated what happens when not enough competition suddenly turns into too much competition. If Epic were able to demonstrate that it was possible to overtake Steam, everyone would try to copycat their strategy, and then you likely end up with a balkanized market where no one has the market share or resources to provide the level of quality that Steam does.