My initial reaction was, "Fine. Another launcher I won't use." but then they started buying exclusives, often days before release on other platforms, and after said platforms had been hyping the games for months and taking preorders. My reaction to this was to completely shut down any excitement I had for these titles just the same as though they had been delayed. I was salty.

However it's been a bit now, and I've heard some other points of view, and had some time to consider things.

I've had Steam for 15 years, and GOG for 8 years. Steam has been my default go-to source for PC games since Half Life 2 came out, and I have completely taken it for granted, and I have taken access to my Steam library for granted as well. I have a considerable amount of sunk cost into the Steam platform, and that makes me dependent on it, if only psychologically.

GOG is everything PC games distribution should be, from keeping old games alive that would have otherwise faded into the miasma, to taking a hard-like DRM free stance. In a perfect world, everyone would see this and GOG would be the absolute dominant platform in PC gaming.

Maybe the 30% cut that Steam and GOG take is too much, but Steam was competing with physical sales, and that 30% cut is an amazing deal when compared to the costs of physical disks and packaging, shelf space, publisher's cut, and retailers cut. GOG was just following through with what the norm was. Steam takes 30%, so GOG takes 30%. It's expected.

Epic is now muscling in with their 12% cut, paid exclusives, and free games reminiscent of EA Origin's On-The-House program. EA ended on the house when it was no longer growing it's user base, and we can expect epic to likely do the same in regards to paid exclusives and free games. Besides, that Fortnite money won't last forever. Epic's hope is that the ball will be rolling long before that pile of Fortnite cash runs out, and the Epic Store will become a self sufficient machine.

What am I doing in reaction to all this? Well I'm re-evaluating my relationship with Steam, and PC gaming distributors in general. Before Steam I bought PC games as physical releases. Nothing is stopping me from pulling out my retail copy of No One Lives Forever 2 and playing it, even though the game isn't available for sale anywhere, and the Software Etc. I bought it from has long since closed. This is fundamentally a better way of "owning" pc games, and is closer to actual "ownership" rather than merely possessing a license reliant on an online login through a 3rd party service. With GOG, as long as I download the installer and save it away somewhere, I'll always be able to just install and play, just like a physical copy. No Internet? No problem.

I've scanned through my Steam wishlist and removed every game there that's available on GOG, and I've added the same games to my GOG wish list. I have decided that GOG is now my default, and primary PC games platform. Whenever a good deal on games I own on Steam crops up on GOG, I'll probably snag it to further reduce my reliance on Steam.

I've decided to be patient. I was looking forward to The Outer Worlds. Less so when it announced Epic exclusivity. But even now, one year later when it hits Steam, I'll just wait around even more for it to hit GOG... if it hits GOG. It may never make it to GOG, but that's okay. I have no shortage of games to play. I could probably stop buying games today, and still not run out of content to enjoy for the rest of my life.