[keyringlight]

I can't help thinking the battle was lost before it even started, no matter how good the offering was because the PC and mobile platforms (where epic operate their store) have 99.9% already decided who owns them. The way I see it Epic wanted to copy what Counter-strike and HL2 was to Steam, but using Fortnite to push their store for a fresh generation of gamers. The problem is they couldn't replace or exist alongside the incumbents while trying to bring in more than a trivial amount of income. The only way I can see the outcome being different is if they were in the position Valve were in around 25 years ago with a fresh or poorly served market or something other than video games, few remember Stardock Desktop as a place they got their games.

[hparadiz]

Epic games goes out of their way to be hostile to Linux users. I'm at the point where I just ignore windows only games. And I'm the exact type of person they'd want to convert cause I tell all my friends about my gaming experiences. They could even take proton and use it in their store.

[imtringued]

This is basically my opinion as well. There are enough games that run on Linux that I don't have time to play them all, so if the game is windows only I skip it.

The steam chat app is kind of terrible and there was a Linux UI bug that caused UI lag a few years ago. Epic Games just can't replicate the goodwill.

[surgical_fire]

They could totally carve their niche if they focused in making their store better.

Could it surpass Steam? Probably not. But you don't need to surpass Steam to have a viable, profitable store. GoG is the alternative that proves the rule - it is smaller, but they have their niche offering.

EGS is shit, and relied on exclusives (which everyone typically hates, especially on PC).

[keyringlight]

IIRC GoG has a pretty poor history in actually turning a profit with the exception of when CD Projekt release on of their own games, and even then they do the vast majority of their business on steam or the console stores. If GoG was a decent money-spinner then CP projekt wouldn't have split if off. Even a niche has a cost to operate, and that's with GoG being a pretty plain service on top of game downloads.

[chupasaurus]

GOG was bought out by the founder precisely because it became a decent money-shredder after CD Projekts were merged.

[jamesfinlayson]

Yeah GOG for me fills a niche - old/classic games with no DRM. I realise that I can get them mostly from Steam but I support GOG and their goals.