I can’t speak for anyone else but I can at least share why I didn’t care for it.
Steam already exists and there isn’t a lot I feel is missing from the Steam store. Not to mention there isn’t anything that Epic does better than Valve for their storefronts. Epic doesn’t provide any new value that Valve doesn’t. In fact I’d argue that Epic causes negative value for several reasons:
They essentially fragmented the PC market as now I can’t access all of my games in a single location. The same reason for example that I hate that Netflix, Hulu, Disney+, HBO Max, etc … exist. It just makes the overall experience less convenient and more expensive.
Several features that Steam already has working are either broken or missing in the Epic Store. Especially around the shopping cart, etc … I haven’t gone to look recently to verify if any of these have been fixed and probably won’t until the other points are addressed, if they even can be resolved.
There’s no level of trust with Epic compared to Steam. I have a massive Steam collection and Valve has shown time and time again that I can trust that my data is relatively safe with them. When was the last time you saw Valve in the media because of a data breach? When was the last time your Steam account got hacked. Epic is just new here so they haven’t had a chance to earn that trust.
Their motives for wanting to create a new store wasn’t to improve the customer experience. Instead it was to improve their bottom line. The court cases against Google and Apple prove this. If they at least tried to have a PR campaign to show how Epic is innovating compared to Steam especially for making the customer experience better, the Epic Store might have sit better with me.
Timed exclusives. Similar to point 1, but they were just trying to use their massive cash reserves from Fortnight to buy their way into the market rather than earn the trust of customers. This again resulted in fragmentation of the PC market.
Yes, but Google at least innovated and tried to increase customer value with Android. They also make better phones (from some people’s perspective) than Apple. I’ve seen nothing from Epic that tells me that their product is better than Steam. Sure they have free games, but that business model isn’t sustainable and for the non free games, why would I buy from them vs Valve? Sure, if I was a developer I might get a better deal with Epic, especially if I can sign an exclusivity agreement), but I’m not a game developer I’m a gamer just looking to play my games on my PC as easily as possible.
I can’t speak for anyone else but I can at least share why I didn’t care for it.
Steam already exists and there isn’t a lot I feel is missing from the Steam store. Not to mention there isn’t anything that Epic does better than Valve for their storefronts. Epic doesn’t provide any new value that Valve doesn’t. In fact I’d argue that Epic causes negative value for several reasons:
They essentially fragmented the PC market as now I can’t access all of my games in a single location. The same reason for example that I hate that Netflix, Hulu, Disney+, HBO Max, etc … exist. It just makes the overall experience less convenient and more expensive.
Several features that Steam already has working are either broken or missing in the Epic Store. Especially around the shopping cart, etc … I haven’t gone to look recently to verify if any of these have been fixed and probably won’t until the other points are addressed, if they even can be resolved.
There’s no level of trust with Epic compared to Steam. I have a massive Steam collection and Valve has shown time and time again that I can trust that my data is relatively safe with them. When was the last time you saw Valve in the media because of a data breach? When was the last time your Steam account got hacked. Epic is just new here so they haven’t had a chance to earn that trust.
Their motives for wanting to create a new store wasn’t to improve the customer experience. Instead it was to improve their bottom line. The court cases against Google and Apple prove this. If they at least tried to have a PR campaign to show how Epic is innovating compared to Steam especially for making the customer experience better, the Epic Store might have sit better with me.
Timed exclusives. Similar to point 1, but they were just trying to use their massive cash reserves from Fortnight to buy their way into the market rather than earn the trust of customers. This again resulted in fragmentation of the PC market.
Anyway, just my two cents.
Plus, there’s all the cool stuff Valve has been doing for Linux gaming. All the effort into Proton, the steam deck, etc.
At this point, I’m sticking with Steam to reward them for investing in Linux.
Devil’s Advocate: That’s just called competition. Apple could also claim that Google “fragmented” the smartphone market into two different OS.
Yes, but Google at least innovated and tried to increase customer value with Android. They also make better phones (from some people’s perspective) than Apple. I’ve seen nothing from Epic that tells me that their product is better than Steam. Sure they have free games, but that business model isn’t sustainable and for the non free games, why would I buy from them vs Valve? Sure, if I was a developer I might get a better deal with Epic, especially if I can sign an exclusivity agreement), but I’m not a game developer I’m a gamer just looking to play my games on my PC as easily as possible.
That’s a completely different situation though, because that “fragmentation” hasn’t impacted your ability to access anything.
Just add a non-steam game to your library. I do that with epic, gog, and even my emulated and modded games. All in one place with just a couple clicks