What it takes to become the best

 Epic

Comparison. We all live around the way we compare ourselves to others, who we are, what we've achieved, how we present ourselves. It's one of the reasons why one of the strongest emotions man is capable of feeling is the desire to become the very best in any chosen field- to defeat the others and become the best of the best. In the Entertainment world that can seem like something of a pipe dream for many out there, because those at the top of the pack tend to kick down the ladder after they get there, ensuring no one else can threaten their supremacy. That goes double true in the Games Industry whereupon the upper echelons of studios and publishers are steadily finding themselves chewed up by a handful of big players ensuring that any rising star must eventually swear allegiance under one of the bog boys in order to have a chance of making a name for themselves. (Larian are, again, the exception.)

But every now and then, an opportunity like no other swipes over in your direction and presents with it a choice. Either grab ahold with everything you have or let the moment pass you by. There's no guarantee that the ride will be smooth, or that you will be able to keep atop, or even that the ride won't just slam into a brick wall at the other end- but for some that wild and crazy promise of something is enough. Such was the case for Epic Games when they unexpected found themselves with the single biggest game in the world in their laps and did not allow that opportunity to slip through their fingers. They tried to ride it all the way to the top of the video game foodchain and attempted to take on the king himself- Steam. But you know what they say about regicide- You come at the king, you better not miss!

Fortnite was a gigantic success story for all those involved. A total train wreck of an idea destined to slip into rampant obscurity long before it even hit shelves, totally saved by the art of trend hopping at the very cusp of it's popularity. It always feels like something of a cruel joke when some corporation jumps upon a grassrootes and still relatively underground trend and then manages to twist it into another thing entirely, all of their own, thanks to overwhelming resources- but you can't argue with the results. Fortnite has managed to do something I could only fancifully dream about in the naïve days of my imaginative youth: They've combined practically all the world's fictional characters into a single platform. Now they just need to make a 3d arena based fighting game with everyone correctly power-scaled against each and my childhood dream game will be a reality. (Apparently I was a madman as a child.)

But coming for Steam is a bigger deal than just leaping off the success of a few really good games. Steam isn't just a launcher, it's an culture. A staple of PC gaming that is so irrevocable from the hobby that most would never stop using the thing unless Valve literally shut down it's servers. It's how most games are brought and sold, it's where most communities first gather before filtering off into their own Subreddits and Discords, and it's pretty much the only third party launcher that people don't immediately groan about having to load up. (God, waiting for the EA launcher to boot everytime I want to play Jedi: Survivor makes me want to give up and go back to Yakuza, it's abominable.) Sliding into the paradigm, cementing yourself as an alternative to 'the best', well... that takes moxie. And money. A lot of money. Perhaps more so than Epic honestly thought that it would.

Epic were aggressive with the way they wanted to muscle into the marketplace, first by marketing themselves as a 'premium game seller' who maintain a high quality over the games they acquire in stark opposition to Steam's: 'pay us a small fee and you can throw anyone's faeces up here' methodology. Of course that reputation only lasted until Epic got desperate enough to take on their first stinker to the store front, but by that time they were onto their next scheme. Exclusivity- the bane of buyers everywhere! As though PC gamers don't have to deal with enough navigating launchers and increasingly terrible PC ports that demand freakin' NASA-grade components in order to run at launch- now you have to deal with buying games on different store fronts because Epic have bought pointless exclusivity rights segmenting an otherwise broad playerbase. Wonderful. But all those were really just appetisers; the meals are the free games.

Every couple of weeks Epic hands out two free games for its users to snatch-up and subsequently own, and these aren't some crappy bottom of the barrel titles. A lot of the time we're talking real gems of the industry that may not be so new currently, but could certainly justify their price tags in a stretch. Heck, this month we're getting the stellar 'Evil Within' games, both of them, totally free. (Sans the DLC, of course, because they want to make a living somehow.) Of course this encourages people to visit the Epic Launcher regularly, but even more than that it establishes a library of games on their platform giving users a place to consider it a legitimate storefront. However this has not been a painless process for Epic and the cost to play might actually be catching up with them.

You see, Epic don't actually own the IPs of any of the brands they're offering, which is why they pay off the licence holders for the right to offer their game free for a time- that's just the way this operates. Of course, because Epic aren't just limiting their offerings to the lower-status titles, but actual publisher led big name games, this means they're paying a pretty penny and often in order to keep up with the four games a month rhythm they inexplicably set for themselves. We're talking millions per month that's only hopefully subsidised by the amount of people that they bring aboard. And if it isn't? Don't worry about that! This is the Silicon Valley mindset, afterall! Move fast and break things, operate at a loss for your first ten years, it's all about making a name for yourself- money comes later! You know how the story goes, right?

Going up against the powers that be is a commendable proposition, that much is certain- and I'm sure in a parallel dimension Epic Games really cemented itself as a worthwhile competitor to the Steam ecosystem. Heck, give it another decade and that might become our dimension! But for the moment Epic is a nuisance most roll their eyes at, and an unwitting martyr for a nowhere cause, spearing itself on the 'free games' wagon to nowhere. It they make it another ten years without giving up and scaling back, at that point they deserve to become mainstays of the game shopping meta. So for their sake I just hope Epic manages to finagle enough yuppie Silicon Valley investors in order to ride of their misfortunes. That how it works in the tech space, afterall, sell out your soul until your make it!