In addition to more favorable rates for developers, a big differentiator from Steam for the Epic Games Store is exclusives. Exclusives overall annoy me because I don’t want more Steam-clones to browse, just like I don’t want more Netflix clones popping up forcing me to search multiple services for the movie/show I want to watch (in addition to the cost increase).
I get why Epic would go that route to try and build up their store, at least on a surface level. Someone who really wants a game, and its exclusive to your platform, will come to you. Where I think this backfires is in all the people you turn away, or at least anger, because you are ‘forcing’ them to miss out on a game or come to your store. Whether the strategy is the right one will ultimately come down to whether an exclusive gets you more customers, or more anger.
So far, I’d say the scales are tipping towards anger, and that anger is rising as more games are announces as exclusives. Up until now the exclusives weren’t of interest to me, but I did have my eye on Phoenix Point, and I’m very, very interested in Obsidian’s Outer Worlds. Both those titles will now debut in the Epic store, and come to Steam a year later.
Today, I’m leaning towards just waiting that year. There are so many gaming choices that I don’t NEED another title, and a game a year after release is going to be more polished, with some likely DLC included. Plus odds are good it will be cheaper. And specifically for a game like Outer Worlds, much like previous Fallout titles, the release version is likely a buggy mess with a lot of broken or incomplete functionality. Fallout 4 I enjoyed at release, but a year after release the game was a significantly better experience.
Hardcore Casual 
Yep, I just wrote about this as well. What gets me the most about this entire scenario is how Epic doesn’t believe they can just compete on price. Have Metro: Exodus and The Outer Worlds sell for $60 on Steam and $50 on Epic and see where things go, naturally.
I suspect, and maybe Epic does as well, is that a $10 difference between Steam and EGS won’t lure enough people off Steam, and EGS would fail. Especially if Steam still beats the EGS in other areas like Reviews, Social Network, and others.
Afaik Obsidian had nothing to do with Fallout 4. That being said Fallout: New Vegas, which Obsidian created was still a buggy mess at release (and coincidentally, was the best edition of new generation Fallout series)
The Fallout 4 part was because Outer Worlds will be a similar game; open world sandbox, and those tend to be buggier than linear games.
Yep, I already transitioned into patientgamer territory several years ago. I’m getting ridiculously good games from Humble Bundles at cheap prices; have a slate of endless free-to-play games on tap, that the thought of waiting a year does not faze me in the least. I’ve been waiting two years for most games these days anyway.
I do wonder how many more players will make the transition from the Epic/Steam store wars, and what kind of impact this will have on the bottom line of game making companies, if more people veer away from paying for launch shenanigans.
Phoenix Point in particular I have a real bone with, given it was crowd-funded to even get off the ground. Not only would it simply not exist (according to their own pitch) without the success of that crowd-funding, it goes beyond a change in promised-stores and into the realm of dropping out support for certain backers entirely from the loss of Linux support.
With how these commercial deals seem to be structured (The Satisfactory Q&A released quite a bit of info near the start of this whole ordeal), waiting until the Steam launch is probably the way to go. It won’t punish the Dev’s as they have a minimum sales guarantee from Epic. So waiting punishes the people actually responsible.
Doesn’t hurt that all your points on the later release being less buggy and with more content likely being available are true too. ;)
I guess they simply blew backers money, so it was either go to Epic and finish the game? or no game at all.
For sure – waiting seems not a problem. When you see a company just throw money at devs to earn their loyalty it makes one feel sort of dirty to support that kind of strategy. If Epic just went with the low cut/high dev percentage model for a few years they would have won over hearts and product in the long run. Not a great first impression.
I have no idea why pp, are in arms about this, I had no problema installing the ubisoft launcher when i wanted to play one Might and Magic games a couple of years ago, had no problem installing GoG and i dont think I will have any problem installing epic game store if any game I want is available there and is cheaper then on steam.
I did have a huge problem back in the day when steam was just an online antipiracy program but that is water under the bridge and fighting windmills is futile.