Slick wrote on Mar 26, 2020, 19:57:
It's kind of nice to have an actual curated list of high-quality content, as opposed to the Alibaba Warehouse that is Steam.
Ah, yes, high quality content like Omen of Sorrow (64 MC), Sinking City (71 MC), Bee Simulator (58 MC), Mechwarrior 5 (74 MC), Shenmue III (69 MC) and Rune II (47 MC)...
EGS' selection has nothing to do with curation. If you want to get onto EGS, you need to do one of three things:
1) Accept a timed exclusivity deal.
2) Allow your game to be one of the weekly giveaways.
3) Be a highly-anticipated, high-profile AAA game like Cyberpunk or Death Stranding.
Slick wrote on Mar 26, 2020, 19:57:
I like how it's assumed that given the choice, game developers wouldn't want their game on a store that takes 12% instead of 30%. Weather it's exclusive to that store or not, shouldn't they want their games be available to the world and not have to throw stacks of paper at Valve for the privilege?
Not a single publisher or developer has chosen to be EGS-exclusive because of the 88% cut. Those deals are entirely the result of Epic giving them significant lump sum payments. That's why every single EGS exclusive ends up on Steam and other platforms within a year. The larger cut doesn't mean shit when you're selling significantly fewer units.
As you said, publishers and developers should want their games to be as broadly available as possible. That means
not being exclusive to EGS.
Slick wrote on Mar 26, 2020, 19:57:
A game which doesn't use Steamworks or SteamVR doesn't need to be on Steam.
A game that doesn't use Steam APIs doesn't need to be
exclusive to Steam. Games should be available on as many distribution platforms as possible. Steam, GOG, EGS, Uplay, Origin, Game Pass, Itch.io, etc. However, exclusivity deals (like the ones Epic does) prevent that from happening.