Epic Games Store is now Live
News - https://www.epicgames.com/store/en-US/news/the-epic-games-store-is-now-live
Online Store - https://www.epicgames.com/store/en-US/
You can install Epic Games as you would Steam and purchase / download / play games through it. I've not done so myself yet but I imagine they just updated their launcher to be the store. Perhaps anyone using the Launcher can share their experience now that the store has been launched.
Epic is currently advertising they will be working with their partners to give away a free game every 2 weeks. The first two look to be Subnautica (12/14-12/27) and Super Meat Boy (12/28-12/10).
I can't imagine a Steam competitor being a bad thing for consumers. Should be interesting to see how this does.
0
Comments
I already have five tools for buying/installing/launching games on my PC.
I wonder if Valve will match their rates before drainage occurs. I suspect they will.
Having yet another thing running all the time just because it's a launcher for my games is a strong disincentive for me to purchase games on any platform that is not steam. I will only do so if absolutely necessary. In fact it's difficult for me to remember the names of the other launchers. I just collectively call them all "Not-Steam"
The downside, of course, to Steam's success is that Valve stopped making games.
I doubt they'll match, but maybe lower. The Steam platform has more features to it to keep devs/pubs on the platform itself. If drainage happens, it'll be in 3-5 years after the platform is better tested and starts becoming feature competitive. Even then, devs/pubs will probably remain on Steam, we've seen this with Origin, there's games on both platforms, and while I can't recall what the rates were, it was never enough to move people away from Steam.
If Origin, uPlay, GoG, Discord, and Twitch can't make devs/pubs move completely away from Steam, Epic wont be any different.
It's hard to compare the nutritional benefits of a random selection of different foods that each serve a different purpose. Fortnite has more active users than Steam has, so does Discord. Users are already moving away from or using Steam concurrently, it's not really an argument of if it will happen or not, and publishers have to follow users. Regarding price, the attraction from a publisher's perspective to have instant access to what in the future will be a quarter billion Fortnite users with a profit margin that is drastically different and a proven 3d engine ready to go is very likely to drive down prices from Valve beyond a small nudge. That said, uPlay and Origin are publisher specific and are just boutique stores much like battle.net. You're certainly right that GoG is not part of the big picture, however. It's like the Overstock of ecommerce, and is a sneeze fart away from becoming a "bitcoin company."
Oh it already happened
https://steamcommunity.com/groups/steamworks#announcements/detail/1697191267930157838
Steam is now 8% away from matching Epic if the game in question sells well, so we wait and see if they go down further.