You might have heard of Steam, it's the king of PC gaming of coarse. It has the cream of the crop in terms of amazing titles that you can access through its library. Indies that you can only find here. AAA's that are exclusive only on Steam and we can't forget Valve which is the parent company of Steam own's games including Counter Strike Global Offensive and Dota as well as the Half Life series of games. It's ubiquitous with gaming in 2019 and until the flare up with the Epic Games Store; the owners of Fortnite we would have thought there was nobody really trying to fight them. What put Epic on the spotlight in the pc gaming world was it's method of trying to overtake Steam and steal it's customers and it's developers.
Steam has for a long time maintained dominance and in doing so has gathered millions of loyal customers. 90 million monthly active users as of April 2019. Also as of April Steam crossed the line to 1 billion registered accounts on it's platform. Epic tried to take a chunk of that by offering monetary incentives for developers to sign exclusivity deals with it's platform. Something gamers are not too fond off. Playstation and Xbox have for a long time offered exclusive games as well as Nintendo but the PC platform was different. There wasn't as much focus on exclusivity. It was there of course but it wasn't anywhere as big as on the console market. 4A Games the creators of Metro Exodus would go on to take their game off of Steam without any notice and sign on with Epic for a year long exclusivity deal. To those Steam users who were expecting to play the latest iteration of one of the FPS genre's most beloved series were out of luck unless they signed up on Epic and got it there. The problem for many Steam users was that they had been building their Steam library up for years and had accumulated thousands upon thousands of games and spend thousands on building up their library. To split that library up was not something very many were happy about but it was the fact that 4A so quickly sold themselves to Epic that made so many upset and adamant about taking sides. Epic would go on and offer exclusivity deals with many more publishers one of which was the creators of Super Meat Boy who's sequel to Super Meat Boy called Super Meat Boy Forever is currently on a temporary exclusivity year on Epic as well.
Epic is competing by gathering exclusive publishers and games to their side. They are competing by doing this but they are also doing something else that is different from Steam. They are offering weekly free games on their platform. Games such as Subnautica, Soma, and Costume Quest have been given away on the platform. Big triple A publisher's and big Indie's have given away games on the platform. Currently they are giving away at least one to two free games a week on the platform. This is something Steam has rarely done. Publisher's have given away games on the platform before but not on a weekly basis and usually it is a rare occasion. In this way Epic is providing value and competition and making themselves unique and positioning to take a share of the huge PC gaming customer base.
And yet Epic still does not have a competitive storefront like that of Steam. Steam charge’s a lot and takes a lot from developers who put their games on this platform but Steam does this for a reason, because they have the biggest PC audience on the market. In terms of numbers it is massive and when you look at the number’s it does look like a monopoly in terms of player count. And this is key because people who have bought into the Steam ecosystem have invested thousands upon thousands of dollars building up a library. Steam has had the first mover advantage. They were the first one’s into the market and in the business world the first mover advantage is huge. The first person get’s to build up the people who become loyal customers. Steam’s following is huge and cult like in a way. People are dedicated to their platform and for good reason.
What does it have to offer over the other gaming platforms including GOG, Uplay, etc? Steam has a friends list, achievements, trading cards, badges, showcases for profiles, profiles with artwork features, a workshop with mods, community groups, etc. It has just an absolute enormous amount of features that have taken a long time to develop and they have learned how to do things properly from this. While GOG has been steadily pushing out features and improving GOG Galaxy Epic has been slow to adjust.
Steam has 2 decades worth of customer loyalty and Epic is pushing to get a a share of that.But if Epic wants to compete on a series level they will need to add more features and get a bigger customer base. Steam has a reavenue cut of 70 30. Developers keep 70 and Steam gets 30. They have recently made it better for those who prove to be successful on the platform and after millions of units sold the revenue split becomes more favorable to the developer. Epic However has a 88% cut for the Developers. A marked difference especially for Indie developers who are not making the same amount as the bigger developers. Steam is still king but Epichas the resources to become one of Steam's toughest competitors.
Sources:
https://variety.com/2019/gaming/news/steam-one-billion-accounts-1203201159/
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