I don’t have any skin in the game. I’m not some loyalist when it comes to video games & gaming. PC, console, hand-helds, Steam, GOG, Epic Game Store, Battlenet, uPlay, like it doesn’t really matter. I use all of these launchers and platforms.
I’m not happy about the fact that games as a service is becoming a thing, that soon we’ll be drowning in gaming subscriptions where we no longer own the games we’ve purchased but simply license them out. I hate that this will also allow gaming companies to just remove them from your library at will. Apple does this with media that they have lost the rights to. If you purchase a film and Apple loses the rights to sell that film, they’ll remove it from your iTunes library the next time you sync, a small detail in their TOS.
Getting back to the topic at hand. I don’t particularly hate that Epic Game Store is getting exclusives prior to other platforms. It’s more of an annoyance. And while the EGS is not particularly robust with quality of life features, neither was Steam when it first started out. Which is something people forget.
I will also admit, I am enjoying how the EGS is giving away two free games every few weeks. There have been some wonderful games that are now available to me at no cost. It’s a nice gesture and I don’t mind taking advantage of it.
Competition is good for the market and I’m glad to see someone applying pressure to Steam. That being said, I don’t see EGS are setting themselves up as a straight up alternative. The trend has been for gaming companies to developer their own bespoke launchers and storefronts. We’re not going to see more competition, we’re going to see more fragmentation.
Glass Cannon 