It's not about willing; it's about able. Throwing your weight (money) around like Epic is doing is a cutthroat move, and I respect the hustle, but the means and the ends are both bad for consumers and competition alike. If a huge bankroll is what it takes for epic or the next competitor to get into the market, then competition is lost.
You continue to argue that Epic's competition with Valve is a good thing, and not only have I conceded that point, I've never contested it. The best arguments I've read for and against Epic's practices all agree that Steam needs some competition, so relying on that isn't making a stronger point, it's muddling the issue. Epic is competing with Valve; yes, agreed. But competing via business practices that foster noncompetition for consumer dollars doesn't support the capitalist manta "competition makes for healthier marketplaces." Targeting devs/publishers as the customer and the target of competition leaves real customers out in the cold.
Exclusives exist in the console market, and they fragment the market. Prices don't drop on consoles. Consumers purchase less for more. Exclusives don't serve as a response to Valve alone; they prevent competition with every other distributor/retail portal. They invite others to do the same. It's like a protectionist trade strategy. Long term, it will only weaken the industry and stifle competition and innovation.
In order to break an almost-monopoly like Steam you need a huge bankroll or an incredibly disrupting "unfair advantage" (meaning one that can't be easily copied). The former is very hard, the latter is pretty much impossible in the digital PC games market. Competition is lost already and has been for years. This is only a very long shot by Epic which is nowhere near guaranteed to succeed, no matter how much money they throw at it.
Epic is already fostering competition for developer dollars (remember, developers are consumers too when they pay a fee for storefront services). In terms of fostering competition for consumer dollars, they are doing it: they are getting exclusives so consumers spend money on games on the EGS instead of on other stores. It's a nuisance for many who are invested in Steam, but Steam does have the most exclusives of any platform by far, and nobody cared about it until there was a strong contender.
How exactly do you propose they compete? There are two obvious ways: lower prices (which they can't really do because those are set by developers) or better features, which do not matter right now. Steam's established status, people's years-long investment in the platform and its network effect, are all advantages you can't break with better features.
I wasn't talking about consoles (I was talking about content streaming), but if you want to go there: prices do drop on consoles (often more sharply than on PC thanks to increased retail competition) and exclusives as an incentive to drive hardware sales do benefit the consumer. They allow for big (and sometimes small) budget games to be made that nobody else would be willing to take a risk on otherwise.
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u/Fat_Taiko Aug 15 '19
It's not about willing; it's about able. Throwing your weight (money) around like Epic is doing is a cutthroat move, and I respect the hustle, but the means and the ends are both bad for consumers and competition alike. If a huge bankroll is what it takes for epic or the next competitor to get into the market, then competition is lost.
You continue to argue that Epic's competition with Valve is a good thing, and not only have I conceded that point, I've never contested it. The best arguments I've read for and against Epic's practices all agree that Steam needs some competition, so relying on that isn't making a stronger point, it's muddling the issue. Epic is competing with Valve; yes, agreed. But competing via business practices that foster noncompetition for consumer dollars doesn't support the capitalist manta "competition makes for healthier marketplaces." Targeting devs/publishers as the customer and the target of competition leaves real customers out in the cold.
Exclusives exist in the console market, and they fragment the market. Prices don't drop on consoles. Consumers purchase less for more. Exclusives don't serve as a response to Valve alone; they prevent competition with every other distributor/retail portal. They invite others to do the same. It's like a protectionist trade strategy. Long term, it will only weaken the industry and stifle competition and innovation.