I wrote in an earlier blog post why Epic Games is probably going to get away with their shady tactics. In short, for every gamer that is in the know of Epic's hostile takeover anti-consumer tactics, there's a thousand gamers who don't know or outright don't care. After all, why should they? They just want to play games, they don't want to stress about any stupid behind-the-scenes drama. The number of people who boycott Epic Store is absolutely minuscule compared to those who just want to get their games wherever they can get them.
Well, it seems I was completely right. Recently Borderlands 3 joined the ranks of those games that caused a controversy by going Epic Store exclusive. It didn't matter. It still went to break all sales records of its developers, 2K Games, selling more than any of their previous games, and by a long shot.
The sad truth is that Epic's tactics, no matter how dirty and anti-consumer, just work. People don't care what kind of evil corporation they purchase their games from. They just want their games, no questions asked, they don't stress about politics and policies.
But this got me thinking: Epic Games is already getting away with their dirty tactics. Who is to say that they will actually stop, once they get to the top and surpass Steam? Once they get to become the market leader, will they just say "ok, enough with this hostile takeover, we are where we wanted to be, now we'll play nice and start actually collaborating with other corporations like Valve, and stop all this exclusivity bullshit"?
Or will they get greedy? Once they get the taste of money and power, will they be able to stop?
Who is to say that they will eventually stop, if they indeed succeed in surpassing Steam? Maybe they will just continue until Steam has been completely destroyed and can't even afford selling anything anymore.
All the while Epic will probably not add any of the requested features to their digital store, and it will remain a stinking piece of shit.
Even though Valve has had a de facto monopoly status on the PC video game digital distribution market, they have played relatively nice so far, and not abused their power too much. Can we expect the same from Epic? Considering the dirty tactics they are using now, who is to say they won't stop if they take over? If they take over, can destroy all the competition, and gain the monopoly status, who is to say they won't start abusing their power and become even more anti-consumer? They may well become the Microsoft of the 90's, and even worse.
Well, it seems I was completely right. Recently Borderlands 3 joined the ranks of those games that caused a controversy by going Epic Store exclusive. It didn't matter. It still went to break all sales records of its developers, 2K Games, selling more than any of their previous games, and by a long shot.
The sad truth is that Epic's tactics, no matter how dirty and anti-consumer, just work. People don't care what kind of evil corporation they purchase their games from. They just want their games, no questions asked, they don't stress about politics and policies.
But this got me thinking: Epic Games is already getting away with their dirty tactics. Who is to say that they will actually stop, once they get to the top and surpass Steam? Once they get to become the market leader, will they just say "ok, enough with this hostile takeover, we are where we wanted to be, now we'll play nice and start actually collaborating with other corporations like Valve, and stop all this exclusivity bullshit"?
Or will they get greedy? Once they get the taste of money and power, will they be able to stop?
Who is to say that they will eventually stop, if they indeed succeed in surpassing Steam? Maybe they will just continue until Steam has been completely destroyed and can't even afford selling anything anymore.
All the while Epic will probably not add any of the requested features to their digital store, and it will remain a stinking piece of shit.
Even though Valve has had a de facto monopoly status on the PC video game digital distribution market, they have played relatively nice so far, and not abused their power too much. Can we expect the same from Epic? Considering the dirty tactics they are using now, who is to say they won't stop if they take over? If they take over, can destroy all the competition, and gain the monopoly status, who is to say they won't start abusing their power and become even more anti-consumer? They may well become the Microsoft of the 90's, and even worse.
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