I don't think anyone really wants Valve to fail or Epic to win. I think its more about people wanting Valve to have legitimate competition and people wanting Epic to have a legitimate value sell. Epic is entering the current meta promising Developers a larger cut of sales. That's cool and all, but we all know the issue for platforms hasn't been sales. The issue is curation.
Valve proved the business model thanks to a trial and error process and surviving tons and tons of hate. For the young boppers who were not around in the early-2000s when the service launched it was a total shitshow that everyone hated. No developer wanted to take a chance on them and no publisher trusted them. Now Valve has a different problem, they have become a victim of their own success.
There are simply too many games entering the service every day. Valve is now Ellis island and crooks are sneaking in and no one is waiting at the dock to greet the new members of the family. They kinda just throw things into a messy room and every once in a while make room in their above the fold scroll wheel for games not called "Assasins Call of Hitman Theft Auto Strike Farcry 10." (I would play that.)
Epic, instead of looking at this problem and entering the market with a solution, decided the move was to promise more money to any developer that decides to play ball with them. So far there is no indication they are even going to try to attract publishers as large at them. And I get that, at this point why try?
At least Valve is giving curation an attempt. They have a discovery queue, highlight titles trending among friends, and even implemented a curators section where so-called famous streamers dig through the mire for the vox populi to suggest diamonds in the rough. Is it working, lord knows, but its a direction.
So yeah, Epic is just another company trying a thing, a thing that is literally a cash grab because they are offering developers cash to grab in order to get them in the building. Epic isn't worried about cash to grab because they know they have at least a year and a half of profitability from Fortnight before they have to start scaling back and firing people because the bubble burst out of nowhere just like it does for ninety percent of meteoric rise games in that timeframe. Shit they haven't even launched the game yet, technically. What a world.
But I don't care who wins this war honestly, because I know how it ends.
Gaming companies will fight among themselves for market leadership until all of the hard work is done without realising the that this particular digital platform endeavour cannot be won by a publishing or gaming company because it is simply not in good business interests for any company allow a competing company to get even as powerful as Valve has by giving their product to the enemy.
It will be an outside force like Google that swoops in after the big battles and offers a simple compromise, "Let us sell them for you. We will direct people to your launchers to buy them. You guys get all the moneys. We will basically be hype men for you."
The companies say ok like dumbasses because money, without realising that Google types only care about the users, which are the true currency in any digital business focused on the economy of scale. Google gets known as the plug, and Valve and Epic are pushed out of the market by sheer force. Big fish eat little fish.
Maybe I'm wrong, maybe not. Either way though, gamers will be able to discover and purchase video games digitally, and isn't that the point of all of this?
Anyway, shouts to information, can't wait to be lost with you at 5am in Kyoto. Also JErbz.
The Protoculture Mixtape : Issue : People : Tread
