Store Wars

Attack of the Epic.

Competition is good, isn't it? Healthy they say. But what would you say exactly defines 'Healthy' competition. If you ask Epic games they would say "Any and all competition. There's no such thing as predatory, malignant and consumer-punishing competition. Not at all!" Afterall, Steam deserves a little kick up the backside, don't they? They've been complacent too long, it's made them indolent and greedy, hasn't it? Well, that may be true; but if my quasi-religious childhood taught me anything, it's that fighting fire with a flamethrower just makes a big mess. (That was what 'Cain and Abel' was about, right?)

First, let my preface this post by explaining that I am a multi-platform gamer. I am a console gamer, PC gamer, Switch Gamer (Not sure if that counts as handheld or not) and, on the weekends, a little bit of a mobile gamer too. So I'm intimately familiar with crappy business practises held by each medium. The pathetic sales that you get on Console, the perpetual premium pricing from Nintendo's switch, every little thing about mobile gaming; and then there is PC. From a consumer standpoint, Steam is the ideal retail platform for a gamer. A feature complete store front loaded with quality-of-life touches, a non invasive interface that boots and runs almost entirely in the background and actual worthwhile sales discount. The real problem with Steam comes in their commission, wherein they take between 30-40% of a game's sales made on that platform. This used to just be the cost of selling a game on PC; as Steam was, and still is, the biggest gaming store on computer. However, Everything changed when the Epic nation attacked.

In July 2017, a little dud-of-a-game called Fortnite dropped. Not the Fortnite you know, but a cooperative tower-defence-esque third person shooter with touches of Minecraft in its building mechanics. Epic tried to sell the game on the creative freedom offered by their rudimentary creation tools, but few took the bait, and Fortnite was forgotten shortly before its release. I'm not saying that Fortnite was a failure or anything, it just wasn't the major success that Epic had it tipped as. In pops,  Player Unknown's Battlegrounds with its 'Battle Royale' gameplay and the huge success that followed. PUBG was nothing sort of a global phenomena when Fortnite first released. Epic saw this success, looked at their own game and, (I'd imagine), a cartoon light bulb popped over their heads. In a couple of months, Fortnite: Battle Royal had released and the rest is history. Ongoing history, actually.

It is important to stress just how popular Fortnite is. Like 'Minecraft' for the new age, Fortnite has reached the level of proliferation into pop culture where even non gamers instantly recognise the name. Arguably the biggest movies of all time, 'Avengers: Infinity War' and 'Avengers: Endgame', both did crossover events with Fortnite. Heck, Fortnite even had a brief cameo in 'Endgame'. Seriously. Last year, Fortnite wowed the industry with a revenue of $2.4 billion for their 'free-to-play' game. That's the biggest annual revenue that any video game has received ever. So basically, Fortnite made all of the money in the world and then some, leaving Epic games in quite the predicament. They had more money then they knew what to do with. (seriously, it was all over the floors and everything.) So, here's an idea: why not launch a competitor to Steam?

Okay, so the Epic game launcher already existed and had done for a while now, but this was very much the genesis moment for a new age of Epic, as store providers. Out the gate, Epic offers a better deal for developers then Steam, 12% commission off every sale and even less if you developed that game on Unreal engine. (Epic's in house game engine.) So that right there is one huge positive. Pat yourself on the back, Epic, you did it. Now every other transgression against the gaming world is completely justified. Now, I don't want to discredit Epic too much on this fact. The 12% commission is a much more reasonable ask then Steam's 30%, and the more profits that go straight from the consumer to the developer, the better. If only this positivity spread to every decision the folks over at Epic make.

One of the minor points of contention is the way how, despite making all the money in the world with the aforementioned: Fortnite, Epic seem deadset on investing none of that capital into improving their launcher. Now, The Epic Launcher isn't terrible by any means. It isn't great either, but anything that isn't the Origin launcher is heavenly in my book. However, Epic offers none of the quality-of-life features that steam implemented years ago, like; achievements, streaming support, multiple controller support, regional pricing, automatic refunds, user reviews, installation relocation, version rollback, mod support and VR support. But hey, at least the UI is nice to look at. It's as if Epic made a bet with Steam that they could maintain close competition with an inherently inferior service. Kudos to them, if true. Again, it is a minor point but it speaks volumes to Epic's approach and attitude to store development that even the basic amenities are neither offered nor promised.

So where does all that money go, I hear you ask. Well, after the CEO takes his cut and then the Board, the managers, the staff, catering, secretaries, golf memberships , yacht club and new age guru's all get their share. Oh, and the cursed term 'Epic exclusivity' gets uttered. Now, I don't have a huge problem with store exclusivity. Not when the exclusive game was made or funded by the store owner. Star Wars: Battlefront 2 being exclusive to Origin. Makes sense. Fallout 76 being available only on Bethesda.net. I'm sure many people prefer it that way. Borderlands 3 being an Epic exclusive. 'scuse me, what? Epic are flaunting their money left and right, buying over gaming companies and winning exclusivity of their games for up to a year. In this way, Epic doesn't win over an audience by offering them a better deal but rather strong arms them by making sure that the only place we can buy anticipated games is through them.

Of course, Epic claims that this is all in the pursuit of the strict curation of their store; which is their little dig at Steam. Epic wants to gather all these games together in order to make their store front the bastion of quality gaming content on the PC. Bold words. Bull; but they do touch on a good point. That point being, Steam's content moderation sucks. For years now, Steam seems to have no standards when it comes to what can or cannot go up on their store. And I don't mean to say that they should be going around judging what game is good enough to grace their digital shelves but it doesn't hurt to be a little proactive. The amount of cash-grab crap on Steam is nauseating, like that feeling you get when you wonder into that thrift store in the crummy part of town and you can just smell the mothballed sweaters and soggy Y-fronts from the window. And don't even get be started when it comes to the moderation Steam actually does do, all completely reactionary of course. So Epic does have a legitimate argument there, however then you remember that the Epic store features 'Dangerous Driving' and you realise that Epic are sort of standing in a glass house on that front.

Recently, one of the more insidious ways that Epic is drawing ire is by robbing players of their remaster discounts. Okay, that's more the consequence then the goal, but results are the same. Not long after TellTale's demise, its games were pulled from a lot of active store fronts, likely because there was no one around to pay for upkeep. Now that a remaster is on the way for The Walking Dead, however, Epic has revealed their trap card: They were the one's who bought up the TellTale games to sell on their store. Common practise would usually dictate that remasters and re-releases come along with some sort of benefit to owners of the original; discounts in the case of 'Dark Souls Remastered' or just being a wholly free upgrade in the case of 'Skyrim: Special Edition'. But now, Steam owners of the original Walking Dead will miss out on the remaster and the new 'monochromatic mode' unless they want to fork out full price for a game they already own on a different store front. It's confusing stuff like this that makes people hate the PC marketplace.

Finally there is the Kickstarter conundrum, wherein a slew of crowd funded games that originally promised backers Steam releases are being snapped up by Epic. In this instance it is hard to blame the developers for taking the deal. If they are desperate enough to ask the public for funding then they aren't going to turn down an offer from a big studio; even if it does mean selling out their fans, to some extent. This is a much more nuanced issue then the other Epic controversies, worthy of it's own blog, but the consequences are very much black and white for all to see. PR suicide for everyone but Epic. Although it's hard to say whether these exclusive deals has cost any of these developers dearly in sales (And if the Epic cash infusion offset that) but the damage to their reputation is readily apparent. Shenmue 3, Phoenix point and Outer Wilds have all found themselves at the brunt public backlash that is sure to haunt those studios beyond their immediate products. Who knows how much damage this will ultimately cause.

Epic have positioned themselves at the 'underdog' spot in the war against Steam, but they come across more like the antagonists. Forcing users to flock to them with exclusivity deals whilst giving interviews and telling everyone how good they are for the industry. This kind of greedy, petty, squabbling is an example of some of worst tendencies of the gaming industry and likely an omen of potentially worse practises down the line. Just imagine what might happen when actually malicious companies start getting in on the gaming marketplace world; like Google or Amazon. Or >Shudder< the house of mouse!

I don't hate Epic. I just think that they could do better, and I think they know that too. With the amount of mistakes that Steam had made, one doesn't need to stoop to low brow tactics in order to win over fans. Epic could just have easily built up their service, offered studios their competitive percentage, and helped fund indie studios. Those alone would have ingratiated them to the community and set them apart from the greedy tendencies of the gaming industry. Instead Epic have just proved themselves to be another product of that greed and, most annoyingly of all, have the audacity to keep reminding us all of how grateful we should be that they exist. The last thing I ever wanted to do was stand up for Steam, so I won't. But neither will I stand for Epic. They are both poor reflections of each other, and the weight of their feud will bring down the bar for the whole industry with them. Maybe I'm being an alarmist or pessimistic with this post, or maybe this time, the pessimist is the optimist's realist.