When did installing a launcher become such a huge deal? I already have launchers for EA, Ubisoft, GOG, Twitch on top of Steam -- but all the games still play on my PC.

Big difference between "damnit, I have to install a new piece of software" versus "damnit, I have to go buy a freaking new console." (And way, way better than the old days when you had your three or four consoles, then you had your three or four different computer architectures, all incompatible with each other to such a degree that only the largest games came out on even more than 1 or 2 platforms.)

I can understand the frustration if you actively use the Steam services around the games, but, for me, Steam is merely a game library manager. Anything that gives Steam some competition at this point is good, IMHO, especially given the way things have gone the last few years. It is slightly annoying to not have everything in one basket - but the flipside of what happens if Steam just implodes is terrifying to me. A little diversity wouldn't hurt at this point, I think.

All that being said, I don't understand why Steam doesn't just match the cut. They should have the revenue stream to handle it. Hell, take it down to 15% and say the extra 3% premium is for the maturity of the platform and the size of the audience, which, in aggregate, still overwhelms the popularity of Fortnite. That would pretty much defeat any effort on Epic's part to attract titles based on revenue share alone - they would have to actively spend even more marketing money to attract titles, and while the Fortnite cash cow is very massive, it isn't bottomless.

Question: What are you basing that on?

I would argue the true competition for Valve has always been consoles and their digital storefronts. Stuff like GOG and Windows Store have been around but what keeps Valve honest is consoles. As far as what I can tell from my 5 hardcore minutes of googling is that they charge 30% which is basically the standard. I would also argue Valve offers a superior service to consoles and doesn't charge you a monthly/yearly fee to access any of it's features. I'm open to hear the arguments they charge too much but I would need more data to be convinced they are over-charging developers/publishers.

The thing about Epic is that they are currently charging less but are also offering less. It is also very possible they will raise their costs when they add more features and gain more of a foothold in the marketplace. It's a very common practice to do so and easily justifiable by pointing at the competition. I'm definitely making an assumption here but I guess you could say I am highly suspicious of a company that used to gouge developers to use the Unreal engine.

All things considered I don't see how this will benefit PC gaming long term. Having to maintain separate accounts is a pain. As an enthusiast I really don't like doing it and I foresee more casual users opting to use consoles instead.

For some reason Epic is convinced that i am russian and pay in rubles? Any other europeans having that issue?

One nice feature of steam has been the steamworks networking. In games like terraria & risk of rain it's a pain to get a multiplayer room going by directly connecting to eachother's IP. Which doesn't always work when someone has not properly port forwarded the right ports. Games that use steamworks networking just let you press a button and you're in. I bet there are a lot of smaller indiegames looking at Epic's store and missing a solution to get their multiplayer running.

And for as much as people like to call out the trading card & market system as stupid and obnoxious, i am sitting at 50 euro's in steam wallet money, entirely gained because i play games on the platform. I must have been able to buy at least 10 games just by being active on steam for a good number of years. combine that with the workshop, the cloudsaves, the family sharing, controller support, discord-esque chat, game forums (that are 90% terrible, but DO have fixes to common issues a lot of the time) and the linux proton compatibility tool and you have a bunch of features that do offer an experience that puts steam ahead of the epic store by a few miles.

@carlthenimrod Mainly this. "The organizers of the Game Developers Conference released the results of their annual State of the Game Industry survey today, showing that just 6% of nearly 4,000 respondents believe that Steam justifies the 30% cut it takes from developers. That's compared to 32% who said "No" when asked if it does enough to earn that share, and 27% who said "Probably not." 17% answered "Maybe," with another 17% in the "Not sure / don't know" category." This stat combined with Epic taking a lower cut and the "what has Valve done recently" stuff I was talking about on the last page.

Obviously it's hard to know for sure without knowing Valve's internal financials. Given their market dominance, however, it's not hard to see how they would have the incentive and power to squeeze publishers/devs as much as possible.

@onemanarmyy: Not from Europe (America), but I'm having the same issue with currency.

I don't really have an issue with using a different launcher. I've used Origin, Uplay, GoG...what's one more? I agree that it would be preferable to have everything in one place, though.

If people are now ready to pirate the game or not buy it all, then you’d imagine they wouldn’t have cared about Epic Store selling the game at a discounted price, unless we’re talking about a -50% discount. Of course, this could be the case of a very vocal minority.

Personally, I don’t really care. If I’m going to buy this, I’m buying it for Pro/X.

At the moment I also can't really be bothered by this. I don't really rely on any of Steam's features for the most part, apart from cloud saves (but it's not that I'm manually backing up my saves if cloud saving isn't supported).

The only thing I care about, which is something I don't actually want to care about, are achievements. I like them as proof that I have seen most of a game, that I've put the effort in, even though that confirmation is really only for my own satisfaction. Nobody actually cares about that.

I also like tagging games in my library with 'finished', 'backlog', 'don't like', 'currently playing', etc. Again, solely for my personal satisfaction. I enjoy looking at my gaming lists and stats, and Steam offers that.

All that said, I don't (want to) care to the extent that I want all my games in the same place. Epic is giving me free games, EA also did that for a while, even Ubisoft sporadically does it. If I can buy a game on Steam, I'll do it, because that's where the bulk of my games are, but I don't care about few games here and there.

Looking at the Metro Exodus Reddit or the comments section of any article involving this I am utterly baffled by peoples responses and the mass wave of people claiming they will pirate. Now I completely understand the negative response from people in countries where the previous Steam price was lower, but this seems to be a small minority of the responders as many seem to be people in countries where the price was either 1) reduced or 2) didn't change.

The sheer amount of people claiming the Epic launcher is malware or supports China since Tencent owns Epic shares (they own a share in basically every game) and spreading as much misinformation as possible along with people stating all of these "amazing Steam benefits" over Epic that have no impact on a singular game purchase seem frankly absurd. The vast majority of benefits have literally no impact on a single purchase for a single player game in a series that isn't known for mods.

It really seems like a ton of people are 1) justifying a reason to pirate or 2) are lazy fucks, or 3) are looking for reasons to rage. I totally understand the regions where the price is more expensive, but for the rest its absurd, especially for regions where the game is now cheaper.

@dudeglove: It's bad everywhere it happens. Just because it's been happening on consoles longer doesn't make it any better .

I was um... i was "inspired"?

@turtlefish: They don't match the cut because they don't have to, and if the reaction from the general public is anything to go by then they won't have to ever. When publishers see that getting a more respectable cut for their years of effort will mean having to deal with piracy and a vitriolic public backlash they will go back to Steam because at the end of the day you need to turn a profit and recoup the development costs. It's a business that deals in fun, but still a business.

I’m getting this to play on my Xbone, but after reading this thread, I’m also buying at least one copy from the Epic Store just to support them. \o/

@cikame: hahaha amazing liked the zinger in the end.

The biggest issue to me is the same thing that happens with a lot of "Gaming issues" : treating some companies as bad guys and some as your friends.

I get the benefits of steam but It just feels like people are ignoring all the issues it has.

I dont even want to talk about the people who will use any small thing as an excuse to pirate.

EGL taking over the woooooooooooorld.