The problem is that without those exclusive deals noone would change
Most people didn’t buy EA games at origin or Ubisoft games at UPlay even though you needed those launchers anyway. They even didn’t buy CDProjekt games at gog despite the games being dem free there.
Excluding deals on sought after games is literally the only way to get a majority of the players moving away from there comfortable “I have ally games and friends there already” position
People are lazy and hate change - without force it’s not going to happen
Let’s also not forget that game developers have no choice but to release on steam if they want to have any chance on breaking even since they have that huge of a market share and that Epic challenging that already lead to better deals for developers since Valve hat virtually free reign before
With how directly Control tied into the Alan Wake universe with their DLC being completely centered around it I’d be really surprised if they wouldn’t go even further now
That’s because you are not in a position to produce and sell a game.
As a user it sure is the case but as a developer you are in a position that you either have to take their 30% cut or accept that you are selling way less
The fact that pretty much immediately after epic launched their store steam lowered the cut for big publishers tells you that they are fully aware that 30% is too much to be reasonable but they completely could get away with that because Devs just didn’t have a choice.
Because of epic that now changed since even if you don’t actually sell more games you at least can get a guaranteed profit as if you sold those games that you miss out on by not being on steam.
Sure the way epic is doing it is not good but I really don’t see another way how a significant number of buyers would ever come to another store. That didn’t work for EA, that didn’t work for Ubisoft, that also didn’t work for GOG where you actually own the game without DRM and not just a license to play it as long as the server is allowing you.
People are fundamentally lazy and hate changing their routines - that’s why forcing them into buying at your store is necessary if you want to get them to switch.
I mean that’s the same side that steam is using their monopoly for, too
For the users it’s definitely the most relaxed option - but as a developer if you choose to not put up with steams 30% rule you are fucked.
The fact that pretty much immediately after epic gained traction steam announced cheaper rates for bigger publishers tells you that they definitely are aware of how 30% is too much
Personally that’s why I buy all my games on gog if possible even though I have a Steamdeck and that makes stuff more complicated.
People denying steam has a monopoly are probably also denying other fundamental truths that would imply that they had to change their lifestyle (climate change anyone?)
It is a monopoly - they just don’t abuse it as much against their audience.
For developers it’s either take their 30% deal or just don’t sell your game because a lot of people only use steam.
Not even Cyberpunk or the Witcher could sell more on gog than on steam even though you knew that there the developers got 100% of the money spent. Gwent standalone flopped so hard on GOG that it had to be rereleased with limited features on steam and sold more there
People are just fundamentally lazy so it totally is a problem that you have one store with such a massive market share even if it’s very convenient for the end-user they can completely exploit their position against publishers.
Sure EPICs way of making games exclusive to their store is not elegant but without that no-one would choose that store over steam
An inventory management button that would automatically distribute wares to the character with the least carried stuff would already hope a lot - especially if we would be able to save that every cup, fork, etc would automatically be marked as wares and if there was a way to mark multiple things as wares at the same time (and if " sell all wares" would sell everything from all inventories present and not just for the talking character)
Selling wares remotely that are in camp and having an option to automatically send everything marked as wares to camp would also help a lot
I feel as if BG3 could do a lot more with the “wares” marker to make the weight limit less annoying
Moving cups and plates from one char to another just isn’t fun