> There is value in Steam having competition, but that value diminishes as soon as someone comes along and competes for games instead of users.

Content platforms always compete on availability of content. Steam did the exact same thing early on with Half Life. Look at what's happening in the streaming video space. Look at console gaming.

Ultimately, people aren't making Steam accounts because of the Steam workshop or Steam forums or Steam chat or what have you—they're making Steam accounts because there's a game on Steam that they want to play.

If Epic's store had better features but the same games, existing Steam users would still continue to use Steam, because that's where their existing game libraries are. The only way Epic could compete on features alone is if it were possible to migrate Steam purchases to the Epic Store. Since Valve will never let that happen, Epic has to entice users with exclusive games.

And that could be great for everyone—if it caused games to be made that would otherwise never get developed. Consider how much great content the video streaming wars have produced. As annoying as it is to switch between subscriptions, I'd say TV viewers are winning right now.

The problem, of course, is that Epic isn't developing original content—they're paying for existing content to be removed from Steam. My great hope is that this will change in time. Original games take several years to develop, so if any are under way, we wouldn't have heard about them yet. In the meantime, we're getting PC ports of Journey and Detroit, so that's pretty neat!

> Ultimately, people aren't making Steam accounts because of the Steam workshop or Steam forums or Steam chat or what have you—they're making Steam accounts because there's a game on Steam that they want to play.

This is just false. Steam has evolved beyond just a marketplace, and I go there because I enjoy the tools they provide. From VR, to family sharing, home streaming, and more.

Imagine an alternate universe where the Steam client had feature parity with our universe's Epic client, and Epic's client had feature parity with our universe's Steam client. Do you think users would abandon their Steam libraries for the Epic Store, in order to have home streaming?

What's relevant to this discussion isn't what features you like about Steam, but what features cause people to make Steam accounts. In other words, is it actually possible for another player to compete on features alone?

You can use both steam and epic simultaneously, there is no need to abandon anything. In your proposed universe I most definitely would be making new purchases on epic wherever possible.

Exclusives of any kind are anti-consumer, whether it is steam doing it or epic.

I think the most expensive thing I've bought on Steam was Cities Skylines, and that was US$30. I originally got my Steam account to redeem Humble Bundle codes— originally that was the only way to get your games; it wasn't until later on that they started cutting Steam out of the loop and offering their own DRM-free downloads.

Anyway, I wonder how many people are in that position, where they have a giant Steam "library" that's mostly bundle titles and stuff bought on special, that they feel some sense of attachment to, but in reality wouldn't really miss when using a different launcher.

> I originally got my Steam account to redeem Humble Bundle codes— originally that was the only way to get your games; it wasn't until later on that they started cutting Steam out of the loop and offering their own DRM-free downloads.

For what it's worth, I think your memory is mistaken here, it's actually kind of the opposite—early on, Humble Bundles always offered DRM-free downloads (in addition to Steam keys), and it was only later on that they began selling some games as keys only. As someone who greatly prefers getting naked executables, I was really sad when this happened.

Check out the page for the second-ever Humble Bundle in 2010 (the first doesn't appear to be in the Internet Archive). DRM-Free downloads are listed as a major selling point. Also, you'll note they advertise Linux support, which wasn't supported by Steam at the time. https://web.archive.org/web/20101215101427/http://www.humble...

As an aside, I actually have Steam keys of all the early Humble Bundle games sitting in my account, unredeemed after all these years. I've been thinking I could sell them if I ever needed emergency cash for some reason, but even though it's a common practice, it feels kind of wrong... I have downloaded and played these games, just not on Steam.

All (minus a handful) of the Linux compatible Steam games I have are from Humble Bundles.

I'm skeptical that those unused Steam keys would have much value, given routine Steam sales. I've compiled a list of my Humble Bundle games with unredeemed keys (game names only, not the keys themselves) into a spreadsheet for friends.

Music streaming services do not compete on content which makes them much nicer to use.

Huh, this is actually a good counter-example. I wonder why that is. Tidal tried to compete on exclusives and it doesn't appear to have worked out for them.

Spotify appears to be positioning itself as an destination for exclusive, original audio programs, but those aren't music.

Maybe because music labels don’t want to cede too much control or it could just be an artifact from the FM era.

> if it were possible to migrate Steam purchases to the Epic Store

Not necessarily migrate, but offer (for free) the same game on Epic if you already have it on Steam; GOG did this for a few games (not that it helped GOG).

GoG does it for a small, rotating selection of titles, which is good. But for it to make a significant difference, they'd need to be able to move a large majority of people's libraries. That's much harder, given the variety of developers and publishers you’d need to strike deals with. I don’t think it’s feasible, sadly.

GOG still does from time to time. I check this weekly: https://www.gog.com/connect

Edit: You can insert some EA keys from Steam into Origin: https://pcgamingwiki.com/wiki/List_of_Origin-redeemable_game...

I wish EA (and other distributors) did something like GOG Connect. IMO I'd be less annoyed if Epic offered something like this for current Rocket League owner in order to keep the userbase as big as possible before they ultimately split it in two.

>The problem, of course, is that Epic isn't developing original content

And Valve is?

Didn't they just release a card game with Richard Garfield?

I'm not into games myself, but Valve has done tremendous work for gaming on Linux. That alone is enough reason for me to support them.

And this graph should give you an indication of how well this went: https://steamcharts.com/app/583950#6m

Why is that? Did it turn out to be a bad game? As a fan of Magic: The Gathering I was quite interested in it and the concept looked interesting too.

As someone in their exact target demographic - I play Magic Arena and Hearthstone regularly - I think they messed up the business model. I don’t mind paying $50 for a game or $20 for an expansion, but I hate getting nickeled and dimed and I was put off by the fact that if I ended up really enjoying the game there wasn’t a path to continue playing without continuing to pay every time. Felt like gambling not relaxing.

Valve has never been good at building progression systems, and that's exactly what killed Artifact.

You get no rewards for playing the game. If you want new cards, you have to spend money on packs or spend money to enter drafts.

This old fashioned "just play the game because it's fun" mentality is dogma to Valve, but nowadays users want and require the Pavlovian reward systems.

> This old fashioned "just play the game because it's fun" mentality is dogma to Valve, but nowadays users want and require the Pavlovian reward systems.

Speaking to the choir I suspect, but god do I hate progression systems.

Haven't played Artifact, but I'm really not convinced by the narrative that Valve is removed from this stuff. TF2 and Counter Strike all have loot and inventory systems of their own. They're basically required in any free to play game.

Did Hearthstone handle progression better? I believe it's a fairly popular game.

It had an upfront cost (where all the competing card games are F2P) and a cost to play as well as to acquire cards, which put a lot of people off. It is also a more complex game than say Hearthstone, but I think the success of MOBAs proves that complexity is not an inherent barrier to popularity.

Valve do still develop games, they just focus on maintaining their current games now. Dota 2, CSGO, Team Fortress 2 still gets frequent updates and big enhancements.

There's also SteamVR

Well, they were at one point. But I agree, Valve is no better here.

> The problem, of course, is that Epic isn't developing original content—they're paying for existing content to be removed from Steam.

It depends on how you're defining "original content". I mean, yes they are paying for games to be Epic exclusive, however Epic released Fortnite, so they do have their own big releases

> Ultimately, people aren't making Steam accounts because of the Steam workshop or Steam forums or Steam chat or what have you

As a broad generalisation this is baldly wrong. I use a Steam account and buy things there because the platform has the things that you mention (on top of a multiplayer API that generally works pretty well). If it didn't have those things, I wouldn't use it anywhere close to how often I use it now. A very high percentage of the games on it are also available on other platforms (publisher-specific, GoG, the dev) and those are not materially worse than Steam if you only consider distribution.

Exactly, it’s the Netflix problem all over again. Rather than competing on the quality of the platform, they’re just divvying up monopolies and fracturing the customer experience.

A different streaming platform for Netflix, Hulu, Disney, Universal, HBO, Amazon

A different gaming platform for Steam, Epic, Origin, UPlay

The real loser is the consumer

Not quite the same though, since Epic and Steam don’t require paid subscriptions to access their content. The only difference now is that you’re buying some of your games from Epic instead of Steam.

As that necessitates trusting Epic after years of shadiness and recently outright lies, it mostly means a bunch of games aren't going to get bought. For me anyway.

> after years of shadiness and recently outright lies

I'm not sure what you're referring to here. By my account, Epic has been among the better game developers for consumers. I wish Fortnite et al didn't use microtransactions—as far as I'm concerned, they always make games worse by building a purchase incentive into the design of the game—but it is free to play, so there's a limit to how much I can complain.

Using microtransactions (and the normal vehicles to facilitate those, like random loot boxes) is in itself a shady move. Their target demographic with Fortnite certainly doesn't help them there in my eyes.

The fact that it's "free but if you want you can gamble here and look we made it fun!" actually makes that worse, not better. First it draws you in, then when you're hooked you have more trouble stepping out.

I have only played Fortnite Battle Royale (like most Epic users I guess), but there are no loot boxes involved, and it feels very different from freemium mobile games. You pay for skins, or you pay for challenges that make the game more interesting, and for which more skins are the reward. That's it. And you can't wear more than one skin at any time, so it doesn't really encourage binge spending.

It's so harmless that even the non-monetary "engagement hacking" by other services feels like a burden in comparison (e.g. Steam's incessant notifications about new crappy stickers - stop stealing my precious time!).

Steam microtransactions are built into even meta nonsense like cards you get for playing games. It seems like the obvious worse platform for shady lootboxes and gambling with cs:go as well.

I wasn't talking about these issues as if one party or the other had them and another party did not. I was merely pointing out that the construct itself is shady.

Epic might be one of the only companies doing microtransactions correctly with Fortnite. Fortnite Battle Royale is free to play so it makes sense that they monetize somehow, but there is no randomness to purchases in the game. You buy items you want and you see exactly what you're getting. The paid for version of the game recently switched their lootbox mechanic so that you also see what's in the boxes before you buy them.

Changing loot boxes to try to get ahead of EU gambling legislation is truly an enlightened and pro-consumer action.

The transparent llamas certainly had nothing to do with events in Denmark and Belgium -_-.

I’m not familiar with the legislative landscape you’re referring to, but it doesn’t seem like most of the other major companies have gotten rid of their lootboxes, so Epic is doing something right...

Pushes me to console releases. Can’t justify the PC ecosystem with all the nonsense going on.

Console makers would like you to repurchase your game every 5 years for the new console, if they deem the game fit for re-release.

Whereas I've basically been copying the same DooM 2 install from computer to computer for 20 years.

I think this is going away. I can play (some, and it's growing over time) Xbox and Xbox 360 games on the Xbox One, and if I bought them digitally or still have the original disc, I don't have to pay anything more.

Backward compatibility used to be way more normal. Then it was killed, now it is slowly coming back and we are supposed to be thankful for it. A more cynical mind could be tempted to think of this as a strategy.

Same problem there though, they've just been at it longer. Which console do you pick, or do you get all of them?

> years of shadiness and recently outright lies

Citation needed.

probably the security flaws and lying about stopping exclusives. Tim Sweeney has caused a lot of outrage with his recent statements on press, which pretty much were lies. Can't link since don't have time, sorry

But they are competing on the quality of the platform. What do they have a monopoly on? Being the only place to watch Star Wars or whatever is not a monopoly. They compete on both the quality of the content and the quality of the streaming experience.

If Disney doesn't make much content that I want to watch (and they don't), then I don't have to pay them a dime for anything. If HBO only makes one thing that I want to watch, then I can subscribe for a month and then pay them nothing after that. That's a significant improvement over the previous way of doing things.

Why would it be good for a single company to control distribution of all content?

The streaming wars have also effectively ushered in a golden age of TV, as they all compete for the best exclusive content. While annoying, you can switch between them each month instead of paying for all simultaneously.

Epic isn't trying to directly make players' lives better via competition; they're trying to make devs lives better via competition. Their main differentiator there is taking a significantly lower cut of revenue, as well as funding the devs in exchange for exclusivity or timed exclusivity.

I understand the vitriol from many gamers: the Epic Store is a worse experience as a consumer than Steam. But I think that a more-viable funding model for game development is pretty significant: there are plenty of games that just barely eke out enough to keep studios alive/independent, or that almost do but then result in the studio closing or being sold to a megacorp like EA. A 30% cut for what was effectively a hosting and payments processing service was ridiculous, monopolistic behavior, and needed to be shaken up. As such I support Epic's move into the store space: more money for devs means more, and more interesting, games getting made.

Realistically, exclusive deals were the only way Epic could've made that work. For most people, if they could buy a game on Steam, they would, rather than using yet another launcher, and that fact means that Steam would still have most of their monopoly intact. Multiple launchers (and fewer features) is annoying but IMO worth it to get Steam to give a bigger cut to devs (which they immediately started doing after the Epic Store launched, although the Epic Store is still often a better deal for devs).

The devs could already get around the 30% cut by selling steam keys to the game on another site, bypassing Valve. Epic also doesn't care about the developers, most of their exclusivity deals boil down to "anyone but Steam", even 3rd party vendors that also take a 30% cut. Steam is also much more than just "payment processing and hosting". The Epic launcher is so devoid of features that players have to come to Steam game forums for support with their games.

https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2019/04/why-valve-actually-ge...

Right, but most people would buy via Steam, not the third party site with the keys, as per the link you posted; almost three-quarters of all game sales come directly from Steam. It's also not the case that all "Other" sales are commission-free for the devs; per the article:

> Those keys are often sold on other platforms that take their own cut, which sometimes amount to the same as Steam's (though platforms like Itch.io and Humble Bundle generally take much less).

And at the end of the day, devs are still at the mercy of Steam; you can't just sell your game through keys, because Steam controls key generation and doesn't let you do that. Again per the article:

> Steam also imposes some limits on key generation to prevent developers from essentially piggybacking off of Steam's services while solely selling games directly to consumers elsewhere.

That's why I think the anger re: the Epic Store misses some of the point. Epic's move into the store space almost incontrovertibly caused Steam to lower their take rate: two days after the Epic Store launch, Steam dropped their cut of revenue for games that sold over certain revenue thresholds. If Epic is successful, I imagine Steam's pricing will continue to become more competitive, which is better for devs and better for keeping smaller studios alive and independent.

And most of those other sites charged high commissions, lacked region locking, and also meant you would get less visibility on Steam due to lower sales on that platform.

As far as I'm concerned as a consumer lacking region locking (as currently implemented at least) is a big positive because I can buy games for friends. Steam won't let you gift games to people in other regions at all which I don't understand - if there's regional price differences shouldn't I at least be able to purchase my gift at whatever the highest price of the two is?

Everything costs something.

I'm pretty sure that some 3rd party vendors, like itch.io, take way less than 30%

> A 30% cut for what was effectively a hosting and payments processing service

> Multiple launchers (and fewer features) is annoying

You can't claim steam is just a glorified CDN and payment processor in one breath and then complain about the lack of features in other launchers/platforms in the next.

I agree that 30% was steep, but steam provides both devs and consumers a lot of features that everyone now takes for granted (like cloud saves, household licensing, workshop mod frameworks, friends and chat, and much more). The games that move to epic are either going to have to implement these features themselves, depend on epic to provide a framework for it (sentiment seems to be "don't hold your breath", or release without them.

Steam took a 30% cut even when it was just a glorified CDN and payment processor. It's not charging for features, it's charging for its near-monopoly on digital PC game sales.

FWIW, I agree with Epic's stance on chat: Discord is good, use Discord. Steam chat is awful; I effectively never use it, and all of my friends use Discord servers. Epic could build their own chat platform, but for what purpose?

I do agree that there are some sorely-missing other features from the Epic Store, though. But I'm fine with them shipping an MVP to force Steam to offer more-competitive pricing sooner rather than later — which is what happened.

> depend on epic to provide a framework for it (sentiment seems to be "don't hold your breath")

Sentiment amongst whom? Angry gamers? Epic released their 2019 roadmap, it seems fairly reasonable; cloud saves apparently are coming in the next 1-3 months: https://www.gamespot.com/articles/epic-games-store-cloud-sav...

The cost of data storage and sending was a lot more in 2003 than it is now. Where costs have reduced steam has just added more and more features for consumers and developers.

I can't think of any "feature" Steam has added since cloud saves that have impacted me. Any feature development seems to be focused on VR (I don't have PC VR, nor room at my PC to use VR) or streaming (I don't want to stream my game to another device, I just want to play on the PC). And in the meantime their client has stagnated, looking identical to how it did a decade ago, and even functioning the same (e.g. the practically nonexistent library curation features). Hell, even their TOTP app is still the same piece of garbage that they originally shipped years ago, not even supporting 5.5" iPhone screens, let alone the iPhone X form-factor.

I just recently went down a nostalgia rabbit hole when the last of RockPaperShotgun's founders writers left the site. The writing on that site was always far and above any other gaming site, so it's a little bittersweet to read about its history at the end of an era: https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/tag/the-secret-history-of-r...

In one of those articles, they talk about Gabe and Valve employees giving encouraging words (and opportunities that no other indie site got), which also includes this interview with Gabe right before The Orange Box released: https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2007/11/21/rps-exclusive-ga...

Valve has had a lot of issues since then. Steam went through horrible growing pains. Steam support is awful. Valve hasn't released a game in years. But, they are where they are because they had passion, and a cavalier DIY sensibility.

Whatever Epic is doing, I want no part of. Every press release I've seen from them since opening their store has given me the willies. Gamers can get really passionate about this stuff, but for me it just boils down to my gut reaction. Epic and any company that signs exclusivity deals with them do not get my money. And I bought Rocket League on three different platforms.

> Valve hasn't released a game in years

They've recently (this year or the last) released Artifact, a card game, which apparently didn't do very well.

Epic has plenty of time to work out making their market more compelling, and I'd bet money they're working on mirroring a lot of steam features. They basically already have a Workshop model in place via their Unreal Engine market which also serves to get people making more games in their engine.

Gamers rage a lot, but they don't do much or stick to their guns often, so this strategy will be fine so long as Epic is working to address some issues. A few updates and patches, a few more games people simply must have, and nobody will remember why they raged.

I'm not thrilled with this, but I'm not going to stop playing Rocket League. I'm going to buy Borderlands 3 (and so are all my friends that grumbled about it being a time exclusive, and they'll buy it from Epic because we all want to play right out the gate together). I still remember people raging against Origin - most of them use it for the EA games they swore they'd never play again.

Epic has HAD plenty of time to work out making their market more compelling. One of the most frustrating things about it is how many YEARS they've had and how little effort has gone into it during this time.

I'm a VR dev by trade and a gamer by (nearly exclusive) hobby. I'm well deep into Epic and always will be. And it makes me angry. They're intelligent guys and the Unreal engine is fantastic, but the anti-consumer decisions they've made over the last few years have been very frustrating.

The ability to search is a particular sore point. Unless you know the exact name of what you're looking for, you're going to be unsuccessful, and the community have been screaming about this for literal years.

Can users not just point Google at the site, or are the contents not index able in that way?

>I'm going to buy Borderlands 3 (and so are all my friends that grumbled about it being a time exclusive, and they'll buy it from Epic because we all want to play right out the gate together)

All my friends and I (30+ crowd) are like "fuck that, I got other shit to play" for Borderlands 3 but we all grudgingly used Steam back when CS:Source came out. I wonder if it's an age thing. I know my backlog is years long as this point so waiting 6 months to play it isn't making me lose sleep.

That happened to me too. When I had more time, I was also much more willing to just buy it wherever.

Coming along with getting old is having more things to do instead of video games, like side projects, or board games, or hanging out in person. Personally, starting ~3 years ago much of my video game time started getting replaced with tabletop RPG's as a way to spend time with friends, even online ones. I hadn't ever played tabletop RPG's before that point.

So when several of these games came announced as "not on Steam", my reaction was also "it's ok I can wait."

I've experienced somewhat the opposite. From 18-30 I had Saturday night AD&D every weekend, then people had kids, got different jobs, moved around, and now getting everyone around a table together is near impossible. We still spend time in person but it's usually one on one for a quick beer or chat on the patio with whoever happened to crop up. I also just have tons more family engagements; nephews and nieces to take out for birthdays, graduations to celebrate, dinner at my wife's parents one weekend, dinner with mine the next, siblings coming in from out of town. When we do get a free weekend we usually travel or go hike. Growing up has killed my tabletop life, but it's still a good life.

Luckily my computer gaming friends still have time for a match here and there, and games that are part of series we really enjoyed(like Borderlands, or Diablo though that franchise doesn't really grab us the way it used to) can usually bring a few of us together at odd times in the evenings. And double luckily my wife loves Rocket League and we usually squeeze a few matches in before we wind down for the evening.

Yeah agreed. As I've gotten older, my tolerance for putting up with experiences and tactics I don't like has decreased. I dislike Epic attempting to strong-arm me into using their platform while still dealing with ongoing security concerns and adopting anti-consumer behavior, so I won't use them. Just fine to wait and play some of the many other games on my eventual to-play list

Yes, I would love some competition for Steam, but the strategy Epic is using is instead anti-competitive and anti-consumer.

> Epic isn't making a marketplace where I want to spend my money by being better than Steam, they're just trying to make a place where I have to spend money if I want to play certain games. Good luck with that one.

The irony in this statement is kind of ridiculous. You can't play many games without owning a Steam account right now. How is that any different in principle?

Overall, I recognize the Epic Store has some large issues and it definitely deserves criticism, but I just don't see why this shift is such a big deal in the long run. It's a good thing that Valve is getting competition, whose customer support has been a complete joke since its inception and monopoly allowed them to take huge bites from studio profits for years.

I don't believe anyone should be tied to one company's products like we have with Steam and there should never be a monopoly over this kind of stuff; Valve's dominance of the PC gaming marketplace is plain scary. I'm fine with Valve having to prove that people should use their product over the newcomers.

Right now the most frustrating thing will definitely be the split among ecosystems (chat, etc) and feature parity for things like Steam Workshop. That will smooth out over time, but yeah for now that's definitely an annoyance. I think we'll see an intermediary app like Discord fill the social space, just like how XFire used to dominate in the 2000's.

wtf. epic "buys" exclusives. This is something steam has never done. If a developer has their game on steam, they're free to release it anywhere else. Epic has exclusivity contracts

You're phrasing this as if Epic is going around making all these poor developers do their bidding - the developer is agreeing to list their game as an exclusive.

Be mad at the dev for making the choice to host only on Epic Store if you're upset about it - they're aware of the consequences and could have easily gone with Steam instead.

It's often a decision of the publishers, not the devs.

The monopoly store doesn't need exclusives, they're already the monopoly. And back when Steam was first starting out, there weren't competing storefronts that they could demand developers withhold their games from.

> Epic isn't making a marketplace where I want to spend my money by being better than Steam, they're just trying to make a place where I have to spend money if I want to play certain games. Good luck with that one.

Seems to be working ok for EA's Origin store, Battle.net and Mojang though.

Everyone does it because it DOES work, and that's the awful part for consumers.

People forget that Valve made Half-life 2 - at the time one of the most anticipated games ever - a Steam exclusive. It's basically the only way these things can get started.

I don't think anyone has a problem with Epic making their own games exclusive - the problem is that Epic is bribing other publishers and now purchasing developers to create artifical little monopolies which force the consumer to use their product if they want the game.

> I don't think anyone has a problem with

Yes, yes they did. At the time HL2 forced Steam on everyone, it was hated and despised. People forget this. It's how I know Epic will win. Gamers are weak.

There customer service queue is literally months long before they probably ignore your request.

Every return I've ever done has been approved and completed in under 2 days. Old Steam Support (Pre-2014ish) was a disaster though, so I can totally understand where you're coming from.

Returns are the only thing they do well. Their support is absolute garbage in every other regard.

They’re known for products that service hardcore gamers. Limited appeal twitch shooters, and face melting new graphics. Not exactly known for their emotional thinking relative to Valve.

Not hard to see similar limited appeal moves to amass popularity with a particular type of eyeball.