Darks wrote on Jan 29, 2019, 12:27:
I think this pretty much explains why Steams the better platform and its pretty convincing.
Steam--- Epic Store
Cloud Saves--- Yes--- No
User Profiles--- Yes--- No
User Reviews--- Yes--- No
Forums--- Yes--- No
Mod Distribution--- Yes--- No
Friends List and Chat Yes--- Yes
Groups Yes--- No
Item Trading--- Yes--- No
Library Sorting--- Yes--- No
Account Sharing--- Yes--- No
Streaming to other devices--- Yes--- No
Broadcasting--- Yes--- No
Screen-capture Sharing--- Yes--- No
User Created Guides--- Yes--- No
Wish List--- Yes--- No
Yup. you have a good list. Epic is lacking a lot. But to everyone angry, Epic is trying to build it. In order to build it, they need time and money. In order to have money, they need to sell things. The only advantage they have to offer is higher publisher revenue, and potential exclusives. So they're doing what it takes to get a critical mass of users that warrants more investment.
They could have just invested in a true Steam competitor now. Except Steam has a 15ish year lead, which is very hard to compete against. It also has billions in annual revenue, and therefore the type of dev team that affords. It would be a huge, huge investment to build something to compete with that (which is why no one has.) Epic is trying to do it, but can't do it overnight, and wants revenue to prove it, and help fund it, instead of dropping a few hundred million into a Steam competitor that could die overnight.
If you have the choice between Steam and Epic, it's kind of a no-brainer today. So Epic is removing that choice in some places, to get the users it needs to prove that there's even a point in competing with Steam.
And while, yeah, I get being annoyed, I just don't get people who went from "I was so excited for this, but now it's on Epic and not Steam and I won't buy it unless it's super discounted." Just seems to hurt yourself by helping ensure no future Metro games. Unless you need some of the things marked "No" here, why care?
Some people think exclusives will be the future. Possibly. Not sure why it really matters, Steam prices are set by publishers, so it isn't like something being on Steam and on Epic means we'll have a lower price - prices lower when the publisher decides, and the publisher will guaranteed keep price parity across platforms. Also, the reason we have an exclusive is because Epic has exactly one card to play, so they're playing it. Once they're closer to feature parity, they'll have more cards to play, and will be less interested in playing the one-time use card that costs them a good chunk of cash.