this post was submitted on 27 Sep 2024
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So the thing that you want is something that is available on Epic.
Yay monopoly!
Personally if there's no technical reason for a game to be exclusive, then I just want that game to be freely available for people to buy on their platform of choice that has the features they want, or supports their values. Personally, I would prefer to see a GOG release over Steam, as I highly value that they allow me to actually download and own my game installers, they have done amazing work making older games playable and accessible on modern systems.
There's no technical reason for Alan Wake 2 to be an Epic exclusive, it's simply that Remedy got a financial incentive up front from Epic to release that way. This isn't Epic trying to compete with other game platforms, but rather betting that by being the only platform to offer the game will be sufficient to attract players.
This has all played out before with other publishers pulling their games from Steam and releasing on their own platforms (Origin, uPlay etc), but both have vome.back as players will simply go and play something else rather than flock to another games.platfork.in which they have no investment. It's something that even Sony has seen the light on and why we are now seeing historically console exclusive properties coming to PC like God of War and Last of Us.
Steam may be the biggest game in when it comes to games distribution, and monopolies are bad, but to advocate for Epic Games of all companies as an alternative is a weird position to take.
So you don't see value in studios getting guaranteed financing in exchange for timed exclusivity instead of having to rely on the lottery that comes with releasing on all/other platforms?
It's not as if the studios were obligated to sign with Epic either, they just look at the offers on the table and they figure that "Hey, we've got financial obligations to meet, including paying our employees, maybe it's not such a bad idea to get some money upfront."
It's the same as choosing between a salaried job vs one where you're working 100% for commission...
Also your argument would work if you and others were boycotting games that only release on Steam because they end up having a ton of exclusives, the only difference is that they have them because of the size of their user base, they don't need to give anything in exchange for it, just the hope that the game will sell more is enough to make devs and publishers ignore the other platforms and if their games don't sell enough on Steam only then too bad, they don't have anything to back themselves with.