I have lived in the south my entire life, and if there’s one thing southerners love the most it’s the fun little euphemisms that we get to say, one of my personal favorites is “Don’t get too big for your britches” which essentially means don’t think you are more or better than you actually are and try to do more than you can handle. If you would like an example look no further than the Epic Games Store, and their attempt to compete with the likes of Steam because I don’t think I could even make up a better one. Nobody can deny the success of Fortnite and the insane amount of money the game has made them, but thinking that they can get a slice of the Steam market? Absolutely insane, and not one of those “So crazy it might work” plans more like watching your buddy bet his life savings on the sickest horse in a horse race.
While trying to capitalize on your most popular IP isn’t in of itself bad, what very much is though is trying to divide an internet group that has been as close-knit and die-hard as the Steam community and not expect some serious backlash. While they don’t always see eye to eye, there are a few points that a majority of points that members of the Steam community agree on and that is that they enjoy the ease of use and convenience of Steam and that pretty much no one else can compare. This particular trait was very much overlooked by Epic when they launched their store but it certainly became a harsh reminder when Deep Silver, developer of the Metro series announced that their latest title Metro Exodus would be coming exclusively to the Epic Games Store despite advertisements showing a steam release. This announcement resulted in a harsh backlash which has even lead to someone claiming to be a developer at A4 claiming that if the game gets too much backlash then the next Metro game might skip PC all together which is another story in of itself.
What all of this boils down to is that Epic is hoping that if you provide the games, the consumers will come, that’s why they are giving developers a higher percentage of the sales price and luring developers like Deep Silver and even Ubisoft. What they didn’t anticipate was how stubborn the PC gaming community is and that Steam, while very imperfect, is their golden boy that should not be messed with.
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