I own thousands of games and play 30+ a year so I’m pretty sure I remember what buying and playing games is specifically about. However, I also recognize that this is 2019 and that most digital platforms have features that are useful to me outside of the game itself. Cloud saves are tremendously useful to me because I…

Does it not? When companies jump ship from your service based off of better transaction rates, better promotion, and an overall lower amount of noise. I’m going to say that is a pretty solid benefit.

That’s not really how it works. Gaming journalists love to talk about the larger cut and better curation as if they’re the reason for these exclusives. But they aren’t. These (timed) exclusives are solely the result of large sums of money given by Epic to developers and publishers. The only counter for Valve is to…

Here’s my problem with it: If Epic starts paying for exclusives, Steam might do the same. If they’re only trying to attract customers by the exclusives they have on offer, their main incentive is to try and outbid each other on owning the most games, not offering the best platform.

Even more so, depending on how exactly you quantify Tencent’s 48% stake in Epic, they are one of, if not the biggest companies in the world.

People who are sticking up for Epic like they are some small company sticking up for the lowly game devs by giving them more money (despite that money actually going to the Publishers) confuse me. Like how do they not get that Epic is big and can only afford to do this because they take a cut of nearly every game…

Valve never paid for a Steam exclusive. If games were Steam “exclusives”, it was only because the publisher decided they didn’t need to list on any other online stores. Epic is paying handsomely for their exclusives.

no one is buying out exclusivity. its merely renting it.

Because it offers almost no benefit over Steam, Blizz-store, Uplay, Origin?

Hahaha, do you even read what you write? Go look up the pieces the media has been putting out about the Epic Store. They are all positive, and they’ve managed to ignore every issue people have with the store, dismissing it as “oh, the “gamers” are at it again”.

There is zero benefit to the customer when Epic nabs an exclusive for themselves, and several tangible negatives. It’s pretty straightforward to understand, and so thank you for this breakdown.

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Yeah, but steam was the first to do it, if you want to compete don't go to market with an inferior product. 

Yeah, back in 2004 when PC gaming was considered a financial deadend.  There is literally no excuse for a digital marketplace to launch in 2018 without basic things like a shopping cart and a wishlist. 

I’m not a “Steam bro”, I’m just a “tired of having to register for Even More Storefronts & install Even More Launchers” bro. Skipped Fallout 76 because Bethesda Launcher (dodged a bullet there). And it looks like I’ll be getting BL3 six months late.

It seems like your whole argument is based on the idea that every single person who would have bought the game on Steam is going to buy it from Epic’s launcher, which is not the case. While I’m sure that some of the people who are loudly saying they refuse to buy anything through Epic are just posturing and will end…

I’m not a “Steam bro”, I’m just a “tired of having to register for Even More Storefronts & install Even More Launchers” bro. Skipped Fallout 76 because Bethesda Launcher (dodged a bullet there). And it looks like I’ll be getting BL3 six months late.

but they are not giving that option, they are saying “Here is a fat stack of money to only sell through us.” Hoping that the funneling all users through their store front will make up for the investment.  If you want people to use your store front, build a better store.

Steam, Origin, Uplay, GOG Galaxy, EPIC...sometimes its not about allegiance, its simply about not wanting 9000 different fucking launchers when almost all the games you play are already on just one.

Oh cool, Borderlands 3 comes to Steam just in time for it to be cheap enough for me to buy it.