It’s a little different to have your own games exclusively on your platform than to pay other devs not to release on other platforms, and it’s entirely different if devs just choose not to release elsewhere because no other store is worth the effort for them.
Steam did exactly that for years under the “Steam Greenlight” prism where users voted for games to be released on steam with the condition that they would be exclusive. They only stopped it when they decided to go the Amazon route and sell any old shit with zero curation instead.
And Tim Sweeny made the offer to stop offering Epic exclusivity and even sell their games on Steam if Valve offered to provide their service to developers at the same rate as Epic.
But Steam charges nearly triple what Epic does and can depend on gamers to defend them for some reason.
And Tim Sweeny made the offer to stop offering Epic exclusivity and even sell their games on Steam if Valve offered to provide their service to developers at the same rate as Epic.
Tim Sweeny didn’t make an offer, he tried to make positive PR to EGS while trying to paint Valve as the bad guys; Valve obviously wouldn’t charge the same rate as Epic because they include a lot more value for both user and developers than Epic does: to list a few of Valve services that Epic doesn’t have:
- Steam Workshop (hosting terabytes of content for absolutely free);
- Family sharing;
- Steam Link for game streaming;
- Remote Play Together tech for all the major OSes;
- Linux and Wine/Proton investments (which you could argue was an investment because of the Steam Deck, but that’s an investment that benefits everyone, regardless of whether they own a Steam Deck or not);
- Cloud save hosting;
- Universal controller remapping interface compatible with all the major gamepads;
That’s not to mention the benefits developers can get from Steam’s platform and SDK:
- Steam Input (for not needing to deal with custom implementations);
- Steam Voice API (for in-game voice chats);
- Steam Inventory and Trading Cards, which can result in extra cash for the developers;
- Multiple networking options: Steam Game Servers, Steam Matchmaking & Lobbies, Steam Peer-to-peer Networking, etc.
If you ask me, I think Epic is the one charging way too much
The cut taken by stores is of little concern to me as a consumer. Greenlight was a mess for a lot of reasons, but they discontinued it years ago, while Epic continues to pay for exclusivity deals. Steam provides lots of services to me that Epic doesn’t, though, as others have listed here. That said, I also like GOG and itch.io.
It makes the cost of developing games more expensive. They have to charge nearly 20% more for games on Steam to make the same money they do on EGS.
It’s also why Valve hardly makes games anymore. They sell 4 games made with other people’s money and they’ll have the same gross income as selling a game they paid to develop. Throw in the cost of development, and they just can’t justify game development as a major part of their business.
The last time they made a full-sized game was Half-life 2, which launched the same day as Steam.
