Epic Games suddenly became the centre of attention when, undeterred by Steam‘s twenty-year monopoly, it secured the eagerly awaited Metro Exodus as an exclusive. The platform had actually been around for four years, but once its latest move upset the Steam fanboys, the previously quiet Epic Games was cast as the bad guy. It announced that Metro Exodus, a game players had been waiting for, would be withdrawn from Steam and sold exclusively through its own store for a year. Players have different views on this.
Those accustomed to Steam, who don’t want to give up the convenience of accessing their games through a single client, are criticising Epic Games’ move. Yet Steam entered our lives years ago with similar policies. It required us to install the Steam client to play games from its own studios that we couldn’t buy elsewhere. I am in favour of breaking Steam’s monopoly as soon as possible. And that is already happening. Steam takes cuts of up to 30% from developers to list their games in its store. As for Valve Corporation, it hasn’t produced anything new in gaming in recent years. After all, collecting games under one roof and selling them is an easier way to make money. Besides, once you leave online games aside, plenty of single-player titles have already been withdrawn from Steam and sold in their own stores, just like Metro Exodus. Others require dual activation. With Ubisoft games, for example, downloading through Steam leaves you dealing with both Ubisoft’s client and Steam’s client. There is already no clear agreement between them. The players are the ones who suffer.
Our convenience-loving players, indifferent to whether the industry gets better, also criticise Epic Games’ exclusive sales strategy simply because they want one client, their friends list is already there, and they don’t want to deal with other platforms. Steam fanboys who can’t even be bothered to install Discord: go ahead and complain, mates. It is because of you that the big fish have had the games industry in their grip all these years. It is because of you that proper, detailed games have been replaced for years by games built on simple algorithms and puffed up with graphics. Isn’t it thanks to you that a lousy concept like battle royale—whose only practical difference from the Half-Life and Quake Arena of the 1990s is a battleground that shrinks over time—sells by the million?
I am aware of the conveniences Steam offers players. We agree that they have built a very good system, one where players of the same games can easily make friends and find information through reviews. There are also plenty of benefits for players, such as refunds if you don’t like a game and a fixed dollar exchange rate in local pricing. Those cannot be ignored. But a search and listing system built entirely around commercial interests also prevents you from discovering masterpieces from small studios. And what about the idea of selling games in development through early access, which started with Steam Greenlight and has now become a system that outright exploits players? What about Steam allowing this to be abused, encouraging developers to grow complacent while their games spend years in early access and end their lives there? If gaming has become such a purely commercial strategy, so far removed from feeling and idealism, doesn’t Steam bear some responsibility? Can you really say that Steam, the most familiar intermediary dominating the industry over the last twenty years, has played no part in how the gaming world reached this point?
Epic Games cannot currently compete with Steam in either its features or its catalogue; that is a fact. But the break that began with Metro Exodus could give momentum to the idea of alternative sales channels for developers who believe in their games, in a gaming world cheapened by the big fish’s monopoly and increasingly insulting to players’ intelligence. It could begin a process in which smaller, independent studios can stand out, pay fairer and lower cuts to storefronts and therefore invest more in their games. Alternative sales channels could bring competition to game prices and offer listing and search algorithms that are independent of commercial priorities, with real alternatives to choose from.
While it occurs to me, I have a question for dear Valve. Whatever happened to that Half-Life 3 the players were waiting for like mad?
- “We’re working on it. Mind your own business!”
- Sorry?
- Is the money from Steam just too sweet? Is selling ready-made games easier than making your own?
- Right. Thank you.
I wish Epic Games success.