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.
I say this every time Epic comes up but it remains the same.
Steam is the pro-consumer storefront. Epic is the pro-developer storefront. What Epic seems to fail to understand is that by being so staunchly pro-developer, they effectively become anti-consumer. And as a consumer, I’m just not going to spend money on an anti-consumer marketplace.
When Epic considers adding necessary pro-consumer measures like actual user reviews so I can hear how a game actual performs from real end users, then and only then will I consider Epic a real storefront viable for consumers.
I think you’ve hit the nail on the head. Epic’s main selling point was it’s lower storefront fee (15% vs 30%, if I recall). It didn’t offer any other benefits for consumers and I think Epic realised rather quickly that the people who are actually supposed to be paying money for all of this are the buyers and not the sellers, and thus they’ve resorted to strategies like making games “exclusive” or trying to bribe players with free games.
Pro-developer never needs to be anti-consumer. They are staunchly both right now.
I agree they don’t have to be anti-consumer to be pro-developer, but my point is that that is how they are approaching being pro-developer - by limiting pro-consumer features at the behest of developers. Or perhaps I should be saying more actively publishers, to be fair.