Valve has announced the winners of the Steam Awards 2020. These were created based on the will of the players. The Game of the Year 2020 is “Red Dead Redemption 2” and that is likely to annoy Steam competitor Epic Game Store. They had the game exclusively for a month before it was available on Steam.
This is the Game of the Year on Steam: It is the western epic Red Dead Redemption 2. It won two awards in the fans’ voting:
- In the Game of the Year 2020 category, it won against Hades, Doom Eternal, Fall Guys, and Death Stranding.
- In the Outstanding Game with Profound Story category, it beat Detroit: Become Human, Mafia Definitive Edition, Metro Exodus, and Horizon Zero Dawn.
Epic fails with Red Dead Redemption 2 exclusivity deal
Why is this so bitter for Epic Game Store? Red Dead Redemption 2 has gone through a back-and-forth regarding its release date on PC:
- The title was released in October 2018 for PS4 and Xbox One.
- It was then released for PC on November 5, 2019, but not on Steam.
- Steam users had to wait until December 5, 2019, to finally ride through the prairie as Arthur Morgan.
The Steam competitor Epic Games secured the rights to the title in such a way that Steam users had to wait a month longer for the game than everyone else who wanted to play it on Rockstar itself or in the Epic Games Store. The title was only available on Steam on December 5, 2019, a month later than everywhere else.
This corresponds to the policy of Epic Games Store to attack the big rival Steam by securing exclusive titles. They accuse Steam of taking too high a cut of the revenue. Therefore, they invest a lot of money in special exclusive deals with publishers to secure major titles exclusively.
But with Red Dead Redemption 2, the tactic did not work: players waited an extra month to play the cowboy epic on Steam and followed through on the often-announced boycott of the Epic Game Store.
What are other awards of the Steam Awards?
- In the ‘Work of Love’ category, CS:GO won against Among Us, Terraria, The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, and No Man’s Sky
- In the ‘Better with Friends’ category, Fall Guys won against Sea of Thieves, Borderlands 3, Deep Rock Galactica, and Risk of Rain 2
- In the ‘Best Game you suck at’ category, Apex Legends won against Crusader Kings 3, Ghostrunner, FIFA 21, and GTFO.
Steam’s normies fail at Crusader Kings 3 because they probably just have far too few women and children:
In my Game of the Year, I have 14 children, 4 wives, and am the Emperor of Ireland
