A number of companies have tried to create a viable Steam competitor over the years and though some have succeeded in securing a small segment of the market -- GoG, Origin, Humble, Fanatical, to name a few -- none have come close to matching Steam's user numbers or revenue. With the launch of Epic's new game store, though, the potential is there for a true alternative to the major digital gaming platform.
The big reason that that may happen is because Epic is promising to take just 12 percen tof sales made on its platform. In comparison, Steam takes 30 percent whether you're a small indie or a giant corporation. That's a massive difference which could mean smaller developers making much more from their work by launching and selling on that platform instead. It could well draw some into selling their exclusively, which would be enough to bring many gamers over to Epic's alternative -- beyond the 10s of millions of Fortnite gamers which will help kickstart its use.
Steam isn't going to fold overnight and it's questionable whether the behemoth will make any of its typical begrudged, lumbering changes to combat the new competition from Epic Games, but Epic's new store certainly has some attractive elements for developers and where developers go, gamers must follow if they want to play the latest games.
Beyond a better revenue share model, Epic is touting opt-in/opt-out review systems for developers, a bug reporting system, no social media elements to skip over some of the toxicity that is rampant on Steam, and a tie in with Epic's Unreal Engine, where developers using it don't need to pay any royalties if they launch their game on the store.
Would you play on a competing platform from Epic if it meant better games and services in the long run?