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