The gaming industry has changed considerably over the last year thanks to Epic Games, the video game developer and software company that exploded onto the scene thanks to the massive success of Fortnite. The meteoric rise of the popular shooting game led the company to develop its own online game distribution service, the Epic Games Store. This bold move was the first direct competition to Valve's immensely popular online store, Steam. After a year in the market, the Epic Games Store has garnered a lot of publicity, most of it due to the company's controversial actions that have left many games angry. But even with all the backlash, it doesn't look like the service is going anywhere.
According to Game Daily, the Epic Games Store generated $680 million dollars in revenue in its first year of release, with over 100 million active users. The success of the store can be attributed to Epic Games' aggressive strategy of striking deals with publishers for timed PC exclusives of major titles, something that hasn't gone over well with the gaming community.
It all started when publisher Deer Silver announced that Metro Exodus, which was originally going to be released on Steam, was going to be a timed exclusive on the Epic Games Store before going to Valve's service a year later. This caused significant outrage from fans of the game, who resorted to leaving negative reviews of the game on Steam before its release, only to leave positive ones once the game landed on the store. The fervor against this move was strong, but that didn't stop Epic Games from taking on more exclusivity deals and making the situation even more toxic in the process.
The most recent example can be seen with Ooblets, an indie game that is due for release in 2020. The developers announced that the game would be an Epic Games exclusive last August, leasing to a lot of angry reactions from the game's Patreon supporters. The ensuing comments made by the developers regarding "toxic gamers", snowballed into an online harassment campaign that targeted both the developers and the store itself.
It's no surprise that developers have been flocking to Epic Games to distribute their games: the company offers an 88/12 revenue split for developers, significantly better than the 70/30 that Valve offers. And the gambles seem to be working for some games as sales for Metro Exodus were significantly higher on the Epic Games Store than they were on Steam. However, these high sales numbers still haven't addressed the anti-consumer friendly practice of offering timed exclusives to gamers, which CBR detailed here along with the issues regarding the EGS website and the long term effects of developers, major or indie, flocking to Epic Games in order to make a profit.
And this isn't even going into account some of the other controversies surrounding the company, such as a Reddit user accusing the Epic Games Store of being a front for spyware to steal people's data to sell to China after Chinese investment company Tencent made a $300 million dollar investment in the company.
The responses from Epic Games regarding these numerous controversies has been mixed. Regarding the harassment some developers have been getting, the company released a statement saying that they would work with developers to create a healthier environment for their games. However, when it comes to their aggressive exclusivity practices, there doesn't seem to be any change coming to the company's strategy.