I'm beginning to think poor Epic is developing some sort of complex. Nary a month after CEO Tim Sweeney took to the airwaves to admit that, yeah, the Epic Games Store sure is clunky, the store's general manager Steve Allison has taken to the stage (via GamesRadar) at yesterday's Unreal Fest to admit that "even after years of building the store on PC, we know there's still a ton of work to be done to deliver a world-class experience."
Of course, he's not wrong. Allison said that as a lead-in to talk about all the features that were due to trickle into the Epic Games Store in the near future: stuff like preloading, gifting, and game-independent voice and text chat. You know, stuff that Steam has had for years. Oh, and as for clunkiness: "We're also putting great focus on ongoing launcher improvements that will make the store feel great to use."
These are all good and correct things to be implementing and working on, of course, but the EGS is seven years old at this point, and it's still scrambling to achieve basic parity with Steam. If the grand visions Allison announced on stage at Unreal Fest come to pass, the EGS won't be more attractive than Steam, it just won't be quite as unattractive, relatively. It doesn't sound like a proposition that will win many people over.
Still, Epic's forays into digital distribution are working out for some people: game studios. Epic says it's paid out over $2 billion to devs and publishers, all while giving the likes of you and me a bajillion free games I will probably never remember to actually play. Still, it's good to know they're there.
Hey, good for Epic. As much as I don't use the Epic launcher, I do think the company—whatever its reason—does a lot of things on its business-side I wish Steam would adopt. EGS' 12% cut on revenue from its store is a lot less galling than the meaty 30% Valve takes at base, and its various schemes to tempt devs and publishers—like its recently announced 0% fee for all games until they make $1 million in revenue—would be great to see on PC gaming's most popular storefront.
But none of these things are going to tempt players, I think, and nor will just bringing the EGS up to parity with Steam. I have to admit, Epic's biggest hurdle to getting me using its store has little to do with functionality or player-treat schemes. It's the simple fact that I have 1,400 games on Steam and little desire to suddenly start up a whole new, separate shelf. I don't know how Epic can ever overcome that, but it's probably not with preloading.
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