> If I could buy every single game ever through Steam I would without hesitation. I don't want Origin or the Epic store but I don't get the choice.
I know that some gamers feel this way, but I wholeheartedly disagree. Epic's entry into the market has been good for the PC games industry[0]. We have more games now from more developers covering more diverse genres. We've even managed to pull a few exclusives off of consoles and back onto PC.
As to your choice, I bring this up in another comment[1], but people should focus less on the percentage of the market they have access to, and more on the overall size of the market itself.
You do have a choice, you could buy all of your games through Steam and ignore the games on every other store. The only difference is that now you know what you're missing. Before, you couldn't see the games that weren't being made or ported.
Yes, it stinks to have some games exclusive to one storefront. I understand that, as someone who refuses to install DRM on my computers, I have been struggling to deal with Steam-exclusive games for a long time. I know the pain.
But having a diverse market of storefronts means that there are a ton of new games that exist that wouldn't otherwise exist. And even if you only get access to some of those games, that's still better than having none of them.
Now, if you want to talk about ending exclusives entirely, I'm not opposed to that goal. But a diverse market is a prerequisite for a federated market. How do you feel today about the Android games that don't come to iOS specifically because of Apple's terms? How do you feel about the exclusives Apple is signing for the Apple Arcade right now? Having one storefront doesn't get rid of exclusives; it just means you've traded an exclusive storefront problem for an exclusive market problem.
What about people who want to play games on Linux? Since 2018 Steam has made playing Windows games on Linux absolutely painless. How is Epic Games going to afford doing projects like proton with their cutthroat revenue cut? They can't. They charge extra depending on the payment method and from what I have heard they don't even have regional pricing so the vast majority of people can't even afford games on that store anyway.
Having some games not work on Linux is preferable to having fewer games exist.
Again, I understand the pain. I am currently only running Linux. If a game doesn't run in Linux without DRM, I can't play it. I know as well as anyone how bad it feels to see a game that I want to play, and can't, because the developer thought that Linux wasn't a big enough market to support.
Even so, it is better that there be a broad market where I can't access all of it, then there be a narrow market that only fits my criteria and can't grow. Some of the games that don't work on Linux will get ported later, or people will figure out how to get them working in Wine. I want those games to exist because eventually I'll get access to them.
> How is Epic Games going to afford doing projects like proton
They won't. Other platforms like Steam will do that. How is Steam going to afford to get old DOS games working on modern computers without DRM? They won't, GoG does that.
The market is better served when there are lots of people doing lots of different things. It's those conditions that force companies to innovate and find new market niches that were previously underserved.
I know that some gamers feel this way, but I wholeheartedly disagree. Epic's entry into the market has been good for the PC games industry[0]. We have more games now from more developers covering more diverse genres. We've even managed to pull a few exclusives off of consoles and back onto PC.
As to your choice, I bring this up in another comment[1], but people should focus less on the percentage of the market they have access to, and more on the overall size of the market itself.
You do have a choice, you could buy all of your games through Steam and ignore the games on every other store. The only difference is that now you know what you're missing. Before, you couldn't see the games that weren't being made or ported.
Yes, it stinks to have some games exclusive to one storefront. I understand that, as someone who refuses to install DRM on my computers, I have been struggling to deal with Steam-exclusive games for a long time. I know the pain.
But having a diverse market of storefronts means that there are a ton of new games that exist that wouldn't otherwise exist. And even if you only get access to some of those games, that's still better than having none of them.
Now, if you want to talk about ending exclusives entirely, I'm not opposed to that goal. But a diverse market is a prerequisite for a federated market. How do you feel today about the Android games that don't come to iOS specifically because of Apple's terms? How do you feel about the exclusives Apple is signing for the Apple Arcade right now? Having one storefront doesn't get rid of exclusives; it just means you've traded an exclusive storefront problem for an exclusive market problem.
[0]: https://www.pcworld.com/article/3487735/a-year-in-the-epic-g...
[1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24192204