I keep forgetting how useless Epic is.
Every once in a while, I want to scan my Epic library to see what’s there… and it doesn’t even seem to have a library feature? I need to use a separate app just to see all my games on their storefront.
Then, occasionally, I’ll want to check out what people are saying about their free game offers… and they don’t have reviews?
They don’t support Linux.
Their Android app keeps redirecting to their website for basic functionality.
Do they even have a method for devs to show patch notes or game updates? I haven’t seen any.
I mean, great that they’re giving developers a bigger cut, I guess, but 88% of nothing is worse than 70% of actual sales. Why would I, as a customer, ever try to shop there? It’s a terrible UX missing many features I have grown to expect.
So, yeah. The author of this article gets it.
Edit: and why bother listing your game there, either? Another storefront to manage is a decent amount of overhead with, I’d expect. You’d need pretty good sales for the effort to pay off.
I skimmed most of this thread and didn’t see anyone mention that Steam actually supports third party stores. They let developers sell game keys on other storefronts for free (with limits, granted—the number of keys they can generate depends on sales on Steam, I think.)
Fanatical and Humble only exist because Steam handles all of the games delivery infrastructure for them. That’s, like, the opposite of monopolistic behaviour. Name another tech monopoly giving their services away for free so other directly competing businesses can profit.