110 PCWorld JANUARY 2020FEATURE EPIC GAMES STORE’S FIGHT AGAINST STEAM
challengers had tried and failed to overcome
Valve’s primacy. Many carved niches for
themselves, like GOG with DRM-free and
classic games. But for the biggest PC
releases? Why buy elsewhere if you already
owned a few dozen (or few hundred) games
through Steam? You wouldn’t.
Or at least, you wouldn’t unless forced.
Epic’s only chance, as I saw it,
was to lure away a few high-
profile exclusives. Players would
follow. Not all of them, of
course, but enough to make the
platform viable. And at the
time, I thought this would
happen naturally thanks to
Epic’s better revenue split—88
percent to the publisher, versus
70 percent through Steam.
I underestimated Epic’s
aggression. So did Valve, I think.
First, Epic jump-started everyone’s library
with a bunch of free stuff. Get this: Even if you
didn’t spend a cent on the Epic Games Store
in 2019, your library could be north of 50
games right now. Fifty!
Epic started the year giving away a single
game every two weeks. Then in June it
switched to a free game every week. Then
that became, for a short time, two games a
week. The final count as of this writing?
Fifty-six free games, more than one a week for
the entire year.
And sure, some weeks were more excitingA
year ago, I wrote these words
(go.pcworld.com/rval): “Epic
Games is creating a Steam rival
and Valve should be scared.”
And for good reason: The Epic Games
Store debuted December 6, 2018 and
upended the PC gaming market. Valve,
once unassailable, suddenly seemed very
vulnerable. Flush with Fortnite
money, Epic provided the first
real competition to Steam
since its inception 15 years
prior. What company
wouldn’t worry?
If I could amend that
headline now though, I’d
instead write “Epic Games is
creating a Steam rival and Valve
should be grateful.”
Grateful, not because Valve
fended off the newcomer and solidified its
own position, but because Epic spurred Valve
out of complacency. The Epic Games Store is
better now—but so is Steam. As we look back
on the past year, that might be Epic’s most
valuable contribution to the PC thus far.SHINY, HAPPY
STOREFRONTS
As I wrote last December, “Epic doesn’t need
to convince players [to use the store]. It only
needs to convince developers.” And I was
right. Steam’s strength lies in being the de
facto storefront for PC gaming. Countless