Its probably too early to say this, but I think Steam is going to get a lot less influential over time, and its a good thing. It now falls to Sweeney to keep EGS 'clean' so it can keep a clear distinction from cluttered mess where no single release can ever get decent exposure. Harsh curating is key.
You hit on something there that jogged my brain... Steam does have a serious problem with their vetting process... well, in a sense they do. On one hand it's a big melting pot and big aggregates are always where the cultural anomalies pop-up - one big point of convergence is always needed and frankly I don't see that changing, nor do I think it has to. But when all you have at the center is a melting pot with a small cluster of copycat outliers, people get disillusioned and sometimes talent just gets devoured. "Cult of the Amateur"... a book by Andrew Keen and also probably a fitting description. Bit of an odd book imo but it works here. With that comes all manner of filth and just poor quality content that you then have to sift through because at some point it becomes all momentum. With both the community and the library, you get enough people contributing to such a big pool and you lose control of its identity. Again, not a bad thing, but not without major drawbacks... namely that it just becomes a big fucking mess. On one hand you have a shining beacon and defacto home to all that is good. On the other, there is a fucking sinkhole with a cesspool at the bottom surrounding the beacon. So it really is both simultaneously.
So that's a real problem. Wading the pool is exhausting sometimes. It would be nice to be able to go in, pick from a smaller variety of surer bets, and continue with life. I think that's not so much an issue with Steam as it is the lack of an antecedent. Let's just say "They get by." regardless, heh. Epic has quickly built a model that is deeply contingent on careful curation... not so much in the sense that they aim to be a source of 'premium' games - it's not their implicit namesake, but rather in the sense that if the quality of the games they select for exclusives is not up to snuff, they go completely under after basically giving all of their capital away. Their survival is dependent on careful curation and favorable negotiations with people who provide stuff on the level necessary for everyone to make out well. They still need to go over well and even more importantly for them, sell well. They've pretty much bet everything on that (which to me says a lot about what they're going for... more on that in a minute.) I think that just so happens to be a pretty good way of keeping them in check... because backing seedy or just crappy games actually has immediate and long-term consequences for them, whereas Steam can keep puffing along no matter what games flood the platform. I wonder if that was a real consideration for them or if it just so happens to serve as an unwitting balancer for their platform. It's pretty unique now that I think about it that way.
It just made me wonder... if maybe by chance they might now gain a reputation for being a bit more cautious picking games to the point where they may continue to do so after their business model moves away from the capital-driven one they have now to something more cyclic and sustainable. Maybe that could be their thing. That in itself would be a pretty distinguishing feature. And one that a lot of people would likely appreciate. Not to mention it would put them in their own category, free to operate as they please without disrupting anything. I really do wonder about their intent there. I think they had to know how they would come off with their tactics, but the place they're trying to get to may not be as disruptive as it seems right now. They sure don't try to hide it well. People accuse them of being shady, but it's really all out on the open. This isn't some backroom shit, it's public knowledge. They're acting like they have nothing to hide, which again makes you wonder what their goal is. If they wanted to take the market by force, they might've considered adopting a little more... 'finesse' lol.
I dunno... just rambling nonsense. I see the potential in them being kind of in their own arena, perhaps serving a niche that's been in need of attention for a while. It would at least be a solid endgame for them... to ultimately settle into a position where they are not directly competing with Steam and don't need to. When you look at it that way, it's easy to conceive that they're taking the only route currently available to that point. Makes more sense to me than one ever beating out the other. People make a lot of comparisons there and bring up the ethics in competition between the two as though it must be one or the other... as though that's what Epic wants it to be about, but what if that's not Epic's goal? I personally don't get that vibe. Sometimes I really don't think it is quite what they want... or if it was, they don't seem to be in much of a hurry on many fronts. As many people have pointed out, it's like they're not even trying to offer anything that would sway you away from Steam. The launcher is so different, they're not as community oriented, they're not concentrating on features. A lot of people ask "why" as though these are things that are no-brainier things that they must do if their intent is to compete. But then, why indeed? You know? Why if they are attempting to compete with Steam are they simply snatching up exclusives and offering essentially nothing but the games themselves? It doesn't make sense if we are to assume the former. To me, it looks like they are attempting to build a library that stands out from the rest. Or at least, that has been their main accomplishment thus far. I wonder if they even care about becoming the next Steam. At least, from a survival standpoint it would be smarter not to fall on dominance to see them through. Very high likelihood of catastrophic failure, there.
Many people assert they're just trying to take a piece of the pie by force and pull the wool over all of our eyes. And maybe that's true. But if it is, they will undoubtedly fail, being that they are still the little guy. It's only a matter of time until they're eaten alive if this is truly all they have in mind. That notion puts them on the wrong side of a power dynamic, when where they really want to place high is on a competency hierarchy. If they can do one or two things really well, they don't have to win the whole damned enchilada to be massively successful. A big part of me can't help but think they choose to pursue the things they do and avoid the rest for a reason. Sure, they're going hard for a piece of the pie right now... that's just a necessity for survival early on... nothing short of aggressive moves will get you there in time. You kind of either take off fast or never make it off the ground in their world. Something tells me they must have their reasons, for what is a pretty strange way to piece together a launcher and establish yourself as a distributor. There
must be a larger vision behind what they're doing... that they're probably very wisely not showing right now. I don't know if it's nefarious or not. It may just be that they want to take their piece of the pie and do something a little different with it, but still being in their infancy just can't afford to go there or take those chances. It's all they can do to string-up the heart of what they want to offer.
*shrugs* it's been pretty interesting so far. Gotta hand it to em for really shaking things up. Good or bad outcomes ahead, this was needed and important lessons will be learned. Honestly, I'd be happy to see them turn out as a no-bullshit, feature-light distributor with nothing on offer but good games. Maybe a bit optimistic, but I think that might be what they're ultimately shooting for. Imagine that! A distributor that put their main emphasis on maintaining a tight channel of quality games with good variety. Imagine if somebody did that and made their whole operation all about that and nothing else. That would be pretty sweet. Whether that'll happen, I have no clue lol. I'm sort of reaching here, but I'm nowhere near a conclusion. I think it's still too soon to really make sense of what they're up to just yet. Some good and some bad to it, for sure.
Big grain of salt. But that's the same reason I'm also not jumpy about it. I'm more just, "Hmm... well let them try and we'll see what they do." I'm trying to wrap my head around the ethos in the room when these people decided to go through with everything they have. What would they be thinking about that would make them think it was a good idea and spur them on? People say follow the money... which is like DUHH. But it can never just be about that. You only operate for profit and you ironically wind-up losing it. So to me there has to be more to it than just wanting to take some sales by force. They must have bigger ambitions than that. And to figure those out you have to think less about intent and look more at the outcomes sown... and in more than one way, too! None of these entities exist solely as greed machines. There has to be an underlying identity. A presence to the name. What will that be for Epic?
