The new Epic Games Store is considered a rival to Steam. This is also intended, as can be gleaned from Tim Sweeney’s words. Epic is targeting Steam with exclusive titles for PC. They want to break the monopoly because they believe it is the best for gaming.
This is the situation: Recently, users of Steam are increasingly taking to the barricades, as PC titles are no longer appearing on Valve’s PC platform “Steam”, but in the Epic Games Store:
- For instance, this was the case with Metro Exodus
- and Borderlands 3
This exclusivity angers many who want to continue maintaining and expanding their Steam library.
They feel that Epic is using the billions they earn with Fortnite to secure exclusive titles and lure players into their store. However, Steam customers do not want more launchers. They also criticize the Epic Games Store for offering far fewer features than Steam.
The Epic Games Store is seen by some PC gamers as a boogeyman. Now Epic’s chief, Tim Sweeney, explains why the company secures so many PC exclusive titles.
Epic Games wants to destroy Steam’s monopoly
This is what Sweeney says: He clearly states that the quasi-monopoly of Steam is bad for the development of games. Because they take a 30% cut and that significantly restricts development:
- The 70/30 cut is the status quo. This leads to Steam making more profits than the developer who builds the game. This would be a disastrous situation for developers and publishers that must absolutely end.
Will the resulting 18% increase in developer and publisher revenue benefit gamers? Such gains are generally split among (1) reinvestment, (2) profit, and (3) price reduction. The more games are competing with each other, the more likely the proceeds are to go to (1) and (3).
— Tim Sweeney (@TimSweeneyEpic) June 26, 2019
- Thus, Epic Games makes this “disruption move”, which would be the only reasonable thing to do. They only take 12%.
- With the 18% increased revenue for publishers and studios, they would increase their profits, reinvest the money, and offer games at a lower price.
- This would lead to better games in the long run.
Exclusive titles instead of new features
That is why Epic relies on exclusive titles: Here is the answer: “Because it works.”
Sweeney says that other stores have achieved a lot in recent years, but gained practically no influence. They haven’t even reached 5% of Steam’s reach. Although these stores offer more features than Epic.
For example, after years of great work by independent stores (excluding big publishers like EA-Activision-Ubi), none seem to have reached 5% of Steam’s scale. Nearly all have more features than Epic; and the ability to discount games is limited by various external pressures.
— Tim Sweeney (@TimSweeneyEpic) June 26, 2019
This is what Sweeney says about his own store: There is a lot of criticism directed at Epic for offering too few features in the Epic Games Store. This seems to be something Sweeney acknowledges as well.
The advantages of having his own store, Sweeney sees primarily in exclusive titles and the ability to grant large discounts.
Sweeney believes Epic is willing to solve all the problems that arise over time.
However, one cannot displace a market leader like Steam through new “features” alone.
We believe that there’s no set of features which Epic, or any other store, could add that would be so revolutionary as to lead to a large-scale move of gamers from a dominant storefront to a new one.
— Tim Sweeney (@TimSweeneyEpic) June 26, 2019
The Robin Hood for some, villain for others
What’s behind it: Tim Sweeney is thus, from his perspective, not the villain in the story, but a kind of Robin Hood, who wants to take money from the rich (Steam) and give it back to the poor (publishers and studios).
Fans of Steam will probably see it differently. The most common criticism here is that Epic should convince with the development of a better store rather than with exclusive titles.
