The Epic First Run programme allows developers of any size to claim 100% of revenue if they agree to make their game exclusive on the Epic Games Store for six months.
After the six months are up, the game will revert to the standard Epic Games Store revenue split of 88% for the developer and 12% for Epic Games.
Steam has roughly 90% of the market. Everything else has scraps.
At what point does a market leader not become a de facto monopoly?
When the Majority of PC Gamers chant “no steam no buy” what exactly is Steam? Is it a monopoly? Is it a cult? It’s certainly not an equal competitor in the market. But just like reddit exposing this gets hit with down votes and “steam is not a monopoly cuz Gabe is based” propaganda.
What will Steam become once he dies btw? Will his successor keep the company private or go public and go through shareholder enshitification? Sold to Amazon?
I say all of this as a happy Steam Deck owner, a majority of my games on Steam and where I buy first over others save for real old Games (GOG). Honestly Steam was goddamn stagnant until EGS went online then Valve started updating the UI, made deals to get EA and Microsoft on board. Honestly EGS existing lit a fire under Valves ass. So I guess maybe not a monopoly as a true one wouldn’t even be bothered. But let’s not downplay Valves “big dick” in the market they can swing around all they want.
I’ve envisioned that possibility where Gabe dies of old age, and the company is sold to someone that will do anything for a buck. The bad news there is that any further purchases on Steam might be subject to whatever horrible practices they institute, but there’s no way they’d get away with locking off people’s existing libraries - and people would just shift over at that time to whatever other game stores make sense. And yes, other game stores do exist, even if they have smaller following.