| > 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). |