this post was submitted on 26 Sep 2024
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I'm on the same page as you, it's tough. I have no idea how any other platform can really achieve competitor status with steam, and this is a big problem for us consumers and for developers.
Aside from all the (other) obvious options replicating Steam, theres always the tried and true option of offering lower prices. To my knowledge, no one has been willing to try that yet.
Lower prices was a promise by Epic. We take a smaller cut from the devs so the savings can be passed down to the customers.
Didnt happen, buying on Epic is just getting a worse experience and giving the devs more money for it.
Lower distribution costs (in exchange for less marketing and a worse product) are not lower prices though. If Epic had spent half the time and money they spent negotiating for exclusives on negotiating for lower prices, Im sure they easily could have. For example, Epic advertises a 12% fee on sales, but if they instead took 10% (maybe spent less on exclusives to account for this) and then required prices be 5% lower than MSRP on other stores, then suddenly its a lot more appealing to customers - the ones actually providing the money - while still offering a much better deal than Steam. Similarly, Epic could have just passed on the saving more directly, like I said, with a rewards program or similar. Epic had plenty of ways to actually lower prices for their customer rather than just their buisiness partners. They just chose not to.
Frankly, Epic is pretty irrelevant to this point considering how significantly they chose to burn the bridges with their customers right from the get-go anyway. Unless you're studying how to lose consumer trust or goodwill, they're not really a good reference.
That's something that Steam doesn't allow, which means the only way to have lower prices is for Epic to pay for an exclusivity deal. Because who's going to move to Epic if the only way is to lose out on Steam?
From my understanding, thats only for selling Steam Keys. As long as you're not using Steam's infrastructure, you're fine. You often can find better prices off Steam as it is, on platforns like Epic, GOG or esspecially Itch.io.