That's actually even more speculation than anything I've said since determining whether the game flopped or not requires even more robust numbers on sales and budget. Of course then there's the question whether you consider it a flop if, say, the sales did not even remotely cover the expenses but the exclusivity deal made them turn a profit anyway - the conditions of said deal are of course an even bigger enigma.

Oh yeah, another factor that I had not mentioned: the size of the Steam user base which has more than doubled since the release of Last Light.

Anyway, there's a massive number of signs that Exodus is under-performing and it may be due to the game's absence from Steam.

All I have to say about Epic is that their store is just another glorified rental service like Steam, and I give it the same middle finger.

Also that while I welcome challengers to Steam, making what is essentially a clone of it is fruitless, it's like trying to get Apple users to switch. So many of them are so utterly entrenched, so utterly devoted to their platform that going exclusive to Epic is going to do nothing but harm sales.

i agree i hate all of them steam,origin,uplay, epic store there all bunch of greedy asses, sadly even though i use battle net bobby kotick of activision can burn in hell

The sad thing is we're not buying games any more.

We're buying access to launchers. All the ones and zeroes are on someone else's end.

odd, when i looked it wasn't there.

Oh well...

It's sneaky like a weasel or... a ghost!
...
...I'll see myself out.

epic store is worse than steam gaining all these eclusives by just handing out fortnite money shady as fuck, any dev who decides to go with epic store is a dev i dnt support

what makes it shady?

it is their monies, they can do what they want with it, and they have been very open with it.

what makes that shady?

ok its not shady but its stil la scumbag way to do things

scumbag in which way?

I'm going to play devil's advocate because i think it needs to be said.

How many thousands of shovelware titles are on Epic?

Last i checked, few if any shovelware titles.

I'm rooting for Epic, not because i think they are doing better or worse, but because a good contender against Valve might actually make Steam better. Plus their monopoly of 'let's take 30% for doing literally no work and make billions' will cause an upset. Even if Valve was totally overturned though, they would in fact do just fine with how much they have banked, but they might actually have to... *GASP* Make games again! (the horror!)

Laziness seems to be the bane that destroys companies, games, governments and nations. Epic while is a bit behind is making some headway.

Are you going to condemn Sony for having Exclusives that only exist on the PS3?

Are you going to condemn Microsoft for having Exclusives (I'm sure there's one or two) On the XBone?

Are you going to condemn Spiderweb games for not putting their games on the IPhone/IOS anymore?

Are you going to condemn Blizzard for not having Starcraft 3, Diablo 3, or a number of their other games not having them on steam?

Reminds me of that ol' alt-right slogan (jk): "good times create weak men..."

The problem is there is no competition since there's nothing to compete on so neither platform has any reason to change how they handle bussiness. For example Steam changed their refund policy made it a bit more consumer friendly, added a platform connect for limited titles only because of GOG. Before GOG there wasn't even talk of it. This is the result of GOG and Steam competing because GOG offered better service on the same titles released on both platforms and people responded to that.

In the case of EGS exclusive releases there is nothing to compete on. The release is exclusive, it'll be sold for X dollars this year on EGS, next year it'll be sold for X dollars on Steam or other platforms. Both stores will make their desired profit and even some few people might opt to buy a favorite title of theirs on both platforms so double dip will be a thing. If a game was released on all possible platforms then we could talk about competition which would favor the consumer in the end. Like I said there's nothing to compete on. Neither platform has to add any features or have a need to provide additional or better service. Steam will probably make a killing next year while Tencent will allready have had their boon.

If EGS' intention was really competition they would've undercut Steam. Devs and publishers are aware of these and eventhough they make significantly more money end price remains the same, saving aren't passed onto the customer.

So the situation is not Steam vs EGS but more like distributors vs consumers and distributors are winning.