Back in December I predicted that one of the differentiator points Epic was trying to have with its store, the 2 week long return policy, would end up being changed. It then got changed in Jan, to be exactly the same return policy Valve has with Steam.
Another competitive advantage is exclusive, and now Epic is attempting to walk back the negativity related to that practice. Tim from Epic tries to rope Steam into the picture, by saying they will drop exclusives if Steam lowers the cut they take from devs, but that entire line of logic is comical. First, the two items (exclusives and dev % cut) aren’t at all related, so why group then? Second, does the gaming industry, which is currently thriving, really need Tim to come and ‘save it’ from big bad Steam? Third, this still doesn’t solve the core problem with the Epic store; it stinks from a feature perspective compared to Steam, and that’s mostly why players have been so against Epic exclusives.
I predict Valve won’t comply to this demand (because they don’t need to), while I also predict that Epic exclusives will slowly dry up. And once the exclusives dry up, Epic’s store will become that thing you need to have to play Fortnite, much like Origin and whatever Blizzard calls their launcher are just things you have to deal with to play those companies’ titles (or ignore them because they aren’t on Steam, as I suspect a decent chunk of people do).
Give me one version of a PC game store (Steam), just like I really wish there was a singular entertainment platform like old Netflix.
Hardcore Casual 
Oh yeah, this is Tim Sweeney trying to deflect the exclusives issue, which has pissed off no small number of people, to try and make it look like Valve is the bad guy. This wouldn’t be an issue at all if only Steam were more like us and gave devs a bigger cut.
It is also an exercise in optics, trying to equate the two stores as though they were on par otherwise. Steam, despite all the criticism it gets, has developed a huge set of features that makes the Epic Store look like a lemonade stand set up by a second grader.
Still fun to watch this all though.
I think there’s an interview out there somewhere in which Sweeny admits the exclusives are unsustainable and that they will be phased out once the Epic store gets a larger market share. Which always struck me as putting the cart before the horse – why would people continue buying from the Epic store, if not because of lower prices/more features/etc? The people buying Metro Exodus and the others exclusives demonstrate that they will go wherever the games are. When the games are on both stores… why choose Epic? For dev charity purposes?
All Epic’s PR department needs to be is a Post-It note with “Steam price – $10” written on it. Boom. Done. Valve wouldn’t be able to squeeze devs to that discount, so they’d have to lower their own cut to compete. Meanwhile, consumers win.