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Epic stooped to another new low. A game people backed on fig (like Kickstarter) just got an exclusive launch on the Epic store even though backers were told it would be on Mac/Linux/Steam. They haven't specified when it will actually launch on the promised platforms just that it'll be later. Classy. https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2019-05-12-outer-wilds-becomes-another-epic-games-store-pc-exclusive-and-some-backers-are-not-happy

Hey look, Epic are being douche bags AGAIN. Not enough to put in zero effort but now you pause support on a huge anti cheat service that tons of games use that Valve was attempting to getting working in Proton/Wine. Awesome.

That's not the only option to succeed. It's the only option to try and strangle the market. They are trying to take down Steam and replace it with something crappier lol. Serve your customers before you serve yourself and people won't be so cynical about the thing. They had PLENTY of time to implement basic features BEFORE they started throwing money at everyone not to mention the more I read the more it becomes apparent that either their client will never ever have the features Steam does or that great sounding 12% is competent unsustainable and they're trying to pull a Walmart move. Steam takes 30% (they give the big boys a discount) but they also provide a lot of different services for that money. If they didn't direct2drive and the services that existed before Steam was big would not have been killed by it.

I agree with this video. I feel like this video disagrees with you. They're free to do it because they can...and they're shitty for doing it.

Guess not. Epic Games CEO Says it Will Still Sign Exclusivity Deals With Steam Games

Yeah people had floated giving a discount on Epic since the discount is supposedly so great (debatable as I saw in that link I posted). Make the game 50 on Epic and people will crawl out of the woodwork to buy. But instead the opted to piss everyone off by forcing them into it if they want the game at all.

What would your solution be? I'm genuinely curious because I don't really know honestly lol.

I get what you're saying but I've never understood why this makes Steam worse than anything else. You want a game, buy it, use it. Store has a billion things in it but I'm not really getting why that's so bothersome. Do you ever actually use the store to discover new games? I've never done that. I'm not saying it couldn't be better because holy shit it could but like I said before, what is Epic doing better? Also keep in mind that Steamworks does a lot of shit for developers. It's an entire system of servers and all kinds of stuff (match making, invites, friends, etc).

Sorry...I keep writing walls of text. Just imagine this in a very calm manner and not like me shouting angrily. I'm definitely not going for that. Microsoft and Sony made their own games for their own platform so of course they have exclusives. I'm sure you didn't support Street Fight 5 or Tomb Raider being bought away from other platforms right? They also have an extremely closed system so I'm confused by this argument.. I know you don't want that so I guess I'm not understanding? At worst just use another site to get recommendations and then go buy them on Steam. They keep trying (very slowly) to make it better but the openness of the system is of course going to flood it with shit. No other launchers really have this problem because they don't let just anyone play in their sandbox. If you want good exclusives, you want Valve to actually make games. That would be nice. The store could use improvements. Epic is doing literally nothing in that space at all that I can see (their store and launcher is worse in every way afaik). Their store has not even remotely a fraction of the games Steam has so they can't be an example to Steam there. I think you're caught up in the competition part (which I can completely understand) but not actually thinking of what specifically Epic is doing to show Steam an example to improve. They literally aren't doing anything better than Steam that I can see (except the debatable 30% thing). A good competitor to Steam would be great. Competition is good. Having an inferior store/client and purchasing exclusives doesn't make Valve improve imo. You know what I mean? That's what frustrates me. On another note, I saw this online: https://www.resetera.com/threads/what-cut-do-valve-actually-take-from-devs-is-it-really-as-high-as-some-people-think-lets-find-out.109435/ Talks about the way the Steam store works with unlimited key generation and retail sales and stuff (I alluded to this earlier). That cut Steam takes isn't quite as cut and dry as it seems. Was surprised by how many keys are sold outside Steam.

My issue with that line of thinking is that the Epic launcher has been around for a couple years and they've done dick with it. They decided to launch their store recently and while I can somewhat understand the need to grab some high profile shit or watch their store die, it's not like they exist in a vacuum right? They could very well have taken the time to launch a proper store front and a proper launcher client that was comparable to Steam or at least like...Origin. I think what makes me mad the most really is seeing them throw money at developers like this instead of spending the time and money to make a client and store that are actually good. No Linux client (this annoyed me greatly after all the work that Valve put in and I've started using Linux a lot more), shitty refund policy, and all the stuff in the image above. It's not the worst thing in the entire world but it's very frustrating and a bit anti consumer. If they get Valve to lower their rates, kudos. That is a net benefit. But I'm still not particularly happy about my favorite game series being forced into a store/launcher I don't want to use. It was annoying enough when every company has to have their own launcher (Blizzard/Activision, Origin, UPlay, Bethesda, etc), but this is even more annoying because now they're snagging 3rd parties exclusively. Plus there is competition. I read that generating Steam keys is free. There are tons of storefronts selling keys to the various launchers (also something Epic doesn't support). That's competition isn't it? I've bought a fair number of games from Green Man Gaming myself. The whole thing just leaves a bad taste in my mouth. I AM somewhat conflicted because it is a better deal for devs and I hope Valve stands up and takes notice. I'm definitely trying to not be like all the alarmist people on Reddit but I just do not like this at all. I understand that having a competitor that does something better makes Valve do things better (eventually got them to fix their lack of a refund policy). I'm just having a real hard time seeing what Epic is going to make Valve do that actually benefits me as a consumer. That's the question I'd pose.

That's not a trump card. I just saw it and thought it was funny. If Epic can actually funnel money into making their store/client better and stop doing nasty things like buying exclusives, I am all for competition. Throwing piles of cache at developers at the expense of consumers being forced into your shitty store/client is something I am not for. That being said hey, maybe Valve should lower that share. I've always thought 30% was fucking insane (if I'm not mistaken it's not too far off consoles though).

I'd actually like you to expand upon this and I'll open that with a question. Show me which launcher is better than Steam and then you might have a point about them coasting on good will. The Steam client and storefront and just Valve as a whole have been doing a lot of shit over the years. Between their immense investment into Linux (to try and get Microsoft's strangehold off of PC), their huge investment in VR (new stuff just got leaked yesterday), and the revamp of the friends system into basically Discord, I'm not sure why anyone would be mad at Steam. Maybe they're a little slow at times and they're not always trailblazing but a shitty store with nowhere close to the featureset of Steam is not going to make Steam better. It's just going make PC gaming more annoying with store exclusives. Like I said, I understand when a company makes one of these for their own games. It's understandable. When they start pulling the games of other companies into their stores as exclusives is where I start getting frustrated. That's not consumer friendly and it never will be. If they want to be the better store/client they need to actually MAKE a better store and a better client. Buying exclusives is just forcing people into mediocrity to play the games they want.

I hear that AAA devs get better deals on Steam but Epic keeps throwing boatloads of cash at people to get them over there. I dunno. The whole thing just stinks and their attitude towards their actual customers is cancer. If they spent as much money improving their client as they do giving developers buckets of cash, maybe it wouldn't be so awful right now. Also I'm fucking especially annoyed because I've been using Linux and trying to game there. Valve has done a huge amount of work to get shit running on Linux and then Epic bursts in and doesn't even have a god damn Linux client for launching games.

Valve doesn't pay money for exclusivity. If Epic wants their own games there, well annoying but fair enough, but if they're going to throw buckets of money to keep games off Steam, that is crap. Actual competition would be multiple stores selling the same games.

They're not real competition. They're a shitty store, with no refund policy, no features, and they're trying to buy games away from everyone else. If they put an actual effort into developing a good store and client, it would be mildly annoying but fine.

Borderlands 3 release info accidentally posted? Please don't let this be an Epic store exclusive. Please. I am not buying anything in that damn store.