This is some revisionist history. Stardock already had digital distribution before Steam, I remember thinking at the time I was surprised it hadn't been done by Microsoft before Valve. If anything, Valve was slow to the party, but by that time the entire industry was focused on consoles and the PC was largely neglected, leaving Valve plenty of time to get their act together. To be clear, just about everyone hated Steam then too, since they saw it as a loss of control over what they bought. Hell, I still feel that way to a certain degree.Steam was the front-runner; most people didn't even think it was possible at the time. Once it was proven viable and the risk was removed other companies started clamoring to get in. Other stores haven't caught up because Steam kept working on their store client with updates and new features that had never before been seen in the market.
It's completely comparable because it exposes the hypocrisy of most people whining about the Epic store. If you don't like exclusives in ANY form, I can respect that (and agree to some extent). But I've seen more hell raised about the Epic store than I've EVER seen about console exclusives, even ones that started on the PC. I find all this "outrage" to be so fake when people are up in arms about Epic exclusives, yet just shrug when a 3rd party company is paid off to only release on Playstation (and would otherwise release on all platforms). The latter has happened a LOT more than the number of exclusives Epic has grabbed, yet I don't see anyone complaining about that. That's why this all hypocritical. The only way you can protest what Epic is doing AND have any actual principles is to protest console exclusives. Anything less is just whining.Bankie said:Not comparable. Why would anyone that cares about PC gaming want console market tactics to come to the PC? The EGS as it sits is a redundant platform and by making a game exclusive to their store they're already removing options to play a game since you're forced onto their inferior platform with inferior features.
And no, they're not even close to removing options the way console exclusives do. Let me ask you, does Epic store:
-Lock what resolution and framerate you can run the game at?
-Disable graphics options?
-Only allow gamepad to play the game?
-Require you to buy an additional x86 machine for hundreds of dollars?
Because that's what console exclusives do.
"Yet" being the key word. I don't trust ANY monopoly, including Valve. I don't want Epic to be a monopoly either. Do I want them to create enough pressure to get rid of the 70/30 split and not let any one storefront have too much power? Absolutely. I haven't heard any alternative ideas in how that would happen (aside from the government breaking up Valve). I'll take solutions where they come from.Bankie said:By buying exclusivity they're not bringing competition. By supporting EGS you're telling "other stores" that they can't compete without throwing bags of money at the developers that they themselves previously supported. EGS will worsen the market for PC gamers as they gain more influence. Steam has yet to act like a typical monopoly while EGS is already aiming to be one.
And the same could be said if you own a console. Go ahead and try to reason your way out of that, I'll wait.Bankie said:The bottom line is that if you support a company that functions in this way when they come into the market you are personally responsible for the bullshit tactics and anti-competitive behavior that will become common place.