There is no denying the fact that Epic Game Store has been giving some competition to Steam. This is mostly because of Epic's buying spree, where they get the exclusive rights to sell a particular game on their platform. This has divided the gaming community, as one side thinks that it is unfair and anti-consumer practice, while others think that it’s the only way to compete against a behemoth such as Steam.
Multiple games like Metro Exodus, Borderlands 3, and World War Z were (or still are) exclusive to EGS for a limited time. However, most of them saw a Steam release after their contract period ended. Many developers are now going toward EGS as the store's percentage cut is only 12 percent as compared to 30 percent with Steam.
Valve CEO Gabe Newell has spoken up to reveal what he thinks about this whole scenario. "Competition in game stores is awesome for everybody. It keeps us honest, it keeps everybody else honest," Newell said in an interview to Edge Magazine (via GamesRadar). "But it's ugly in the short term. You're like, 'Argh, they're yelling, they're making us look bad.' But in the long term, everybody benefits from the discipline and the thoughtfulness it means you have to have about your business by having people come in and challenge you."
"We get a lot more freaked out not by competition, but by people trying to preclude competition," Newell said. "If you ask us which is scarier, it's people falling in love with Apple's model of controlling everything and having faceless bureaucrats who get to keep your product from entering the market if they don't want it to, or designing a store in a way that minimizes software's value-add to experience and stuff like that."
Many players prefer Steam over Epic Game Store as it is more users friendly and offers tons of more features. Epic Games has been trying to keep up by giving regular updates to the Store. For example, a few weeks ago Wishlists were finally introduced in EGS. Personally, I have no issue with EGS. I belong to the latter group who thinks competition is good for the market and want actual developers to get a bigger cut.
So what do you think? Do you prefer the Epic Game Store or Steam? Do you think Epic Games should focus more on adding more features? Let us know your thoughts in the comments section below.
