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Comment by devit | Hacker News Reader

Why is that a problem?

You can just install all game stores on Windows and there is no downside to doing so, and no real difference between installing the Epic store and purchasing a game there and buying the game on the game publisher's website.

Also currently Steam has a dominant position and 30% cut, and if the Epic store succeeds it will result in a more competitive situation with at least two game stores probably taking a 5-15% cut, which is a drastic improvement for everyone except for Valve, which makes Steam.

Same thing on mobile if Epic succeeds in the antitrust lawsuit with Google/Apple stores instead of Steam.

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How does that benefit me, Joe Customer? I’m not getting a lower price by going to EGS. I’m just getting more friction in finding a game I want to play.

If the game store takes a lower cut, then either games will cost less, or they will be better because at least some of the game developers will choose to use the extra money to pay more employees to work on the game.

Also, if there are more stores it's less likely that entire categories of games will be unavailable to you (or available but worse due to reduced budgets) due to all game stores having rules banning them, and in general game stores are less likely to be able to enact policies that serve them at your expense.

> then either games will cost less

They don't. The prices, between MTX and multiple release versions, have gone up if anything.

> they will be better

Pretty close to unuantifiable. What quantification we have, critic scores, aren't showing any movement in the ~decade since Steam got competition (Origin, GoG, etc).

The only benefit seems to be for the shareholders and corporate executives thus far.

So if Apple makes the cut 99% instead of 30% it would make no difference to the customer?

I get free games from EGS, just like I got free games from Amazon App Store. For the same reason that the Amazon App Store exists, I can also get open source apps from F-Droid, including apps like Newpipe that aren't allowed on the primary app store on the device.

Do you wish that the Mac App Store were the only way to get apps on your Mac?

> I get free games from EGS

Free games are a marketing practice, nothing more. It's not a sustainable business practice, and it's paid for by Epic's exploitative Fortnight lootboxes. The "free games" will become part of a paid monthly subscription (or just go away entirely) when Epic feels like they have the audience they need.

And me? The value those free games might provide me is not worth the cost - being marketed to by a company whose values are quite the opposite of my own.

> Free games are a marketing practice, nothing more.

It's a marketing practice that would not happen without competing stores. The end result is user benefit.

> it's paid for by Epic's exploitative Fortnight lootboxes

Why does it matter to me how it's paid for? Does not allowing competing stores change where Epic or Amazon get their money? The end result is that I benefit from Epic and Amazon getting to compete.

> being marketed to by a company whose values are quite the opposite of my own.

I find Apple's values to be opposite to my own (selling low privacy devices and lying about it, preventing me from doing general computing on my devices, etc.). With competition, I would at least have a choice of finding an app distributer like F-Droid whose values are closer to mine were I to be stuck with an iOS device.

You still haven't answered the question about whether you would prefer if your Mac didn't allow you to install apps outside of it's app store.

There are now more store-wide sales available ("Fall Sales" and whatnot). While at the developer's choice a game may have the same retail and sale price at different stores, since the sale dates are different, I the consumer am more likely to find and buy the game at the lower sale price. If you the consumer only want to purchase from one store it is still your choice to wait (just like timed exclusives).

Others have complained about Steam's lack of curation causing discoverability problems. It was at the height of this controversy that Epic launched their store promising better curation. Again, this helps consumers because not all consumers are alike. Some consumers do not want arbitrary moral decisions to block game availability, while others want this so that they do not have to wade through "garbage". Others, still, want to make that decision for all consumers.

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