Well evidence shows that at least his stores tax is much smaller (12% on Epic store vs 30% on Steam). But he has been pretty clearly on the side of "everyone should be able to create whatever software they want on every platform" for a really long time. For example look at his rants against Windows Store and the potential path from it to locking down Windows iOS style (while very unlikely to ever happen is/was a possible path if the Windows Store got really popular)
> I'm not sure how that's a benefit for users (multiple app stores).
The same way multiple grocery stores benefit customers. It gives them a choice.
> What he wants is the right to build his own App Store so that he can charge his own "tax" and (hopefully) become a monopolist.
That makes no sense because once the door is open for multiple app stores, there's even less of a chance to become a monopolist. To become a monopolist Epic would have to build their own smartphone platform and get enough market share to effectively control the market, like Apple has done.
Also, when using the generic term it's app store, not App Store. Apple does not have a trademark on the generic term app store [0], they have only registered for that trademark and they will lose even that if challenged. Apple is so petty though that your iPhone automatically capitalizes it anyway.
Its a huge benefit, with competition the "taxes" would compete and developers would try to favor those with lower taxes, plus Apple store and Play Store both forbid adult apps because they want to be "family friendly", if the user wants to install the pornhub app on their iPhone they should have an easy and straightforward way to do so.
How in the world do you not see competing app stores not providing value to consumers from a price competition perspective? It's not like every game on every platform on Windows is a platform exclusive. I've availed of exceptional prices on games strictly because of competition across platforms, especially when one decides to offer up a sale.
Because on the PC, the oft-heralded perfect platform because there are multiple stores, there is no price competition? Epic giveaways aside (which is marketing, not competition), games go on sale on most platforms at the same time, for the same prices.
I, a customer, am not getting a price discount for a game on the EGS, despite the lower middleman cut.
> games go on sale on most platforms at the same time, for the same prices.
No they really don't. Spend time shopping around, games on Humble, GoG, and Itch often have different prices during different sale periods. I just got Into the Breach at 50% off on GoG a day or two ago, it was full price on Steam at the same time.
Different stores also cater to different niches: GoG prioritizes older games that wouldn't be updated for modern machines, itch has really experimental 'true' indie games. Neither one of those storefronts could handle the volume and diversity of both categories at the same time.
Unless you're only playing AAA games or something, I don't get the assertion that multiple storefronts don't increase consumer value. From my perspective as a user, they very clearly do. Having multiple storefronts has been a huge boon to the indie market.
> which is marketing, not competition
What on earth is the difference? Would Epic be offering those games for free if they weren't trying to pull users away from Valve? That's what competition is.
> They're not trying to pull customers off Valve [...] There's a difference.
Assuming this is true, is it a difference that matters? If the Epic games store didn't exist, Valve would not be stepping up and offering those games for free right now. The reason those games are available to you for free is because the Epic store exists.
As a consumer, I would have a smaller selection of discounted/free games each month to choose from if only one storefront existed. If Steam was the only platform, I wouldn't have been able to get Into the Breach at 50% off when I wanted to buy it.
Whether you think that's 'competition' or not -- I'm not going to argue over definitions, but whatever you want to call it it's good for consumers. You're still getting more stuff for cheaper just because another store exists.
> However, the discounted price while it's on sale is.
Same question as above, does this distinction matter? Would we say that Xbox and Playstation aren't competing with each other just because games generally sell for the same base price on both platforms? In reality, the price I paid between two stores was different. Why does it matter what the base price of the game would have been in a theoretical world where it wasn't on sale?
The end result of all of these situations is the same: as a consumer, I'm getting a greater variety of games at lower prices. The end result is that when I buy a game, there are pretty good odds that it might be discounted or offered for free somewhere at the exact moment that I want to buy.
And this is even ignoring the other perks you get from multiple storefronts such as the fact that you don't need to install a client to download games from GoG and Itch (not a service that Valve/Epic offers), or that GoG is going out of its way to track down rightsholders and get older games updated to run on newer systems (also not a service that Valve is prepared to offer), or that Valve is prioritizing Linux compatibility layers (which neither GoG or Itch have the resources to prioritize), or that Epic is subsidizing smaller studios and paying to get exclusives like Journey off of consoles and onto PCs (which is a service that nobody else is prioritizing right now).