[_coveredInBees]

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.

[falcolas]

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.

[danShumway]

> 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.

[falcolas]

> 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.

Fair enough, the timing on the sale was not the same. However, the discounted price while it's on sale is.

https://steamdb.info/app/590380/

> if they weren't trying to pull users away from Valve?

They're not trying to pull customers off Valve, they're trying to add customers to EGS. There's a difference.

[danShumway]

> 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).

[lern_too_spel]

And the reason there was a sale on Into the Breach on GoG is that it was free on EGS last week. This is a direct result of competition.

[wayneftw]

> Because on the PC...there is no price competition?

If that's even true, it's a moot point then since there's no price competition when there's only one app store too.

[falcolas]

So it's simply worse, since the friction has gone up appreciably, to no benefit of the customer.

[wayneftw]

How so?

Having a choice of who to do business with is always good for the customer.

[falcolas]

It's not a choice when it comes to exclusives. It's not a benefit if all of the prices are exactly the same across stores.

Competition is good, but they're not competing for customers - they're competing for developers, to the detriment of customers.

[wayneftw]

> ...when it comes to exclusives.

Since when are exclusives an issue outside of console gaming? Even in console gaming - nobody cares that much. And furthermore, console gaming is not even nearly as important a market or as ubiquitous or as useful to society as smartphones are. The fact that some things are wrong with the gaming market doesn't really say much.

Anyway, app publishers like Spotify and Netflix have already offered lower prices when you signup outside of Apple's app store.

Sorry, but you're wrong. Giving customers a choice between shopping at Walmart, Target or Best Buy will always benefit customers more than only giving them the choice of Walmart.

There is simply no way in hell that you're going to convince me that having less choice is good at any level.

[_coveredInBees]

> games go on sale on most platforms at the same time, for the same prices

Hmm... I wonder why that is? Must be some mysterious phenomena involving price competition between stores...

[falcolas]

Yes, because sales never occurred before when there was only one store.

Oh wait, yes they did. To the same degree, and with a similar frequency.