I don't like my game library is fragmented. But what if Steam was the only store for PC and I wasn't able to buy/play any Epic or EA games because of that? That would be worse.
Or what if the game prices had to be higher than current prices since the only place I can buy a game was steam and there was no competition?
I guess but if Steam was genuinely the only place where people bought games then Epic and EA games would have no choice but to list on Steam which makes you better off, no?
> Or what if the game prices had to be higher than current prices since the only place I can buy a game was steam and there was no competition?
This I think is the meat of the argument but I think it falls down because competition gets weird with software and copyrighted properties. There's no competition between Steam and Origin for games that are only on Origin. If Microsoft Word is only available on the Windows Store for iOS then there's nothing to compete over for a user that needs Word.
I'm curious how this will play out in general. Android already allows side-loaded applications, and Epic allowed people to install Fortnite outside of the Play Store and it did poorly, so they begrudgingly added Fortnite back into the Play Store, so I imagine it would be the same thing on iOS. Arguably it could be even more challenging for others because Apple would likely not be forced to treat non-App Store stores the same as the App Store in some ways, which would very likely lead to a situation where users would get popups when when install the new app store and when they load an app, similar to how running a nonsigned program works on Mac now.
Without the requirement that all apps able to be purchased on all stores at similar prices and still under Apple's review process then apps will flock to the store that makes them the most money and fewest rules and users will have no choice but to acquire that app via that store. If I have to go to X store for an app I need I don't really have my choice of store.
Do gamers like the current culture of having to have Origin, Steam, UPlay, Epic, GOGs, Blizzard Store, for no other reason than large middlemen playing Civ with marketshare and exclusives?
I think if this issue was solved we would see less people desiring Apple to have such tight control over their ecosystem because it would mean that for users that like Apple's store opening up isn't a strict downgrade for them.