![]() ![]() But then Epic started paying developers (presumably) exorbitant amounts of money to feature exclusively on the store (or at least not on Steam), either permanently or for a set period of time, and the fallout from that has dominated all conversation about the storefront for the best part of the year. Given all of this mess, you’d think that a storefront that offers a hand-picked selection of games and a more generous revenue split between developers would be welcomed with open arms. Origin is bad, Uplay is worse, and the less said about Microsoft Store, the better. It also perpetuates the vicious internet cycle of popular things only becoming popular because they’re already popular, while everything else gets lost in the crush of online releases.Īt this point, Steam has precisely two things going for it: its longevity (and the community which has built up as a consequence of that), and the fact that it isn’t any of the other storefronts. ![]() The 'Recommended' tab for upcoming games, for example, can be easily manipulated by developers by maintaining a vaguely close release date to keep their game relatively high up on the storefront. But I do know the system is ripe for abuse. I don’t even know what Valve’s current policy is in terms of which games make it onto Steam and which don’t. ![]() Worse, instead of actually hiring people to curate its increasingly crowded platform, Valve has instead tried to shirk the problem onto the community through Greenlight and user reviews, before praying to the altar of algorithms to make the problem go away. In recent years, however, Steam has gone from PC gaming’s boutique store to PC gaming’s thrift shop, a gigantic virtual dumping ground where you need a headlamp and a shovel to find the games that are actually worth buying. And nobody cared, because for the longest time Valve was PC gaming’s benevolent dictator, appeasing the masses with its regular sales and Steam’s extensive social features, further boosted by its image as this perfect company where anyone could do what they wanted, and the fact that it created some of the best goddamn PC game series ever made: Half Life, Left4Dead, Portal. In fact, when I first heard that Epic was creating its own storefront, I was thrilled, because it meant, finally, some actual competition for Valve, which has enjoyed a de-facto monopoly on PC gaming for the best part of 10 years. Picking on the Epic Store is like having a go at your bath for overflowing in the middle of a tsunami. Sadly, they’re all pretty rubbish in their own special ways. ![]() Thing is, there are valid criticisms to be made about the Epic Store (I'll make them shortly!), just as there are valid criticisms to be made about every PC gaming storefront there is. That was a somewhat confrontational opening paragraph. It makes me want to set my desktop on fire and leave my house to become a Tibetan monk, isolated from anything that looks remotely like a PC. Not interested,' I boggle at the sheer, clanging, weapons-grade silliness of it. Every time I see a comment on a game review that says something like ' Epic Store exclusive. The outrage over the Epic Games Store (hereafter Epic Store) has to be some of the most ridiculous I’ve seen in a while. ![]()
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