So whats people opinions about Epic and its new store.
My take: I feel somewhat ambivalent about it. Theres two aspects to it really. On the one hand, i dislike their tactics of essentially buying out exclusivity deals and forcing players to use their store if they want to play a particular game. But on the flip side, I also recognise that a monopoly in the form of steam is not exactly pro consumer either - even though Steam has not especially abused its dominant position in the market over the past 20 years. So I suppose i am a bit on the fence. I do not think Steam should get a free pass just because it was there first. But equally all my stuff is on Steam - currently 187 games and counting. And being forced to use another platform is not what i would call a pro consumer tactic either. I am guessing they view it a more viable and in the long run cheaper way to muscle in on steam territory. As the alternative is to penetrate the market and just sell everything steam does but cheaper.
Ultimately, Steam has had a Monopoly for many many years. And what it did to first establish that Monopoly was to make Steam installation a requirement for Half Life 2 - which back in the day caused a great deal of outrage - now long since forgotten. So Valve are not exactly the good guys here. I suppose the best that can be said of them is that Steam has been a pretty good platform over the years and ultimately is responsible for nearly all PC sales in gaming are now done digitally - whereas consoles are still some way behind the PC market.
The one alternative i suppose to all this is GOG. But i feel GOG is a more niche market - being that it specialises in older games and remastering them/making them work on modern systems.
Im asking the question as i just downloaded Epic store to see what it actually looked like - and i will need to get it anyway as I am a Phoenix Point backer. Which is probably going to be my first purchase, although i am rather tempted by World War Z as well.
My take: I feel somewhat ambivalent about it. Theres two aspects to it really. On the one hand, i dislike their tactics of essentially buying out exclusivity deals and forcing players to use their store if they want to play a particular game. But on the flip side, I also recognise that a monopoly in the form of steam is not exactly pro consumer either - even though Steam has not especially abused its dominant position in the market over the past 20 years. So I suppose i am a bit on the fence. I do not think Steam should get a free pass just because it was there first. But equally all my stuff is on Steam - currently 187 games and counting. And being forced to use another platform is not what i would call a pro consumer tactic either. I am guessing they view it a more viable and in the long run cheaper way to muscle in on steam territory. As the alternative is to penetrate the market and just sell everything steam does but cheaper.
Ultimately, Steam has had a Monopoly for many many years. And what it did to first establish that Monopoly was to make Steam installation a requirement for Half Life 2 - which back in the day caused a great deal of outrage - now long since forgotten. So Valve are not exactly the good guys here. I suppose the best that can be said of them is that Steam has been a pretty good platform over the years and ultimately is responsible for nearly all PC sales in gaming are now done digitally - whereas consoles are still some way behind the PC market.
The one alternative i suppose to all this is GOG. But i feel GOG is a more niche market - being that it specialises in older games and remastering them/making them work on modern systems.
Im asking the question as i just downloaded Epic store to see what it actually looked like - and i will need to get it anyway as I am a Phoenix Point backer. Which is probably going to be my first purchase, although i am rather tempted by World War Z as well.
