Okay, so this isn’t important news, but I thought it was kind of funny, so here we are. Steam has been around for a very long time now, and it’s pretty much been the king of video game distribution on PC for most of that time. It’s not perfect, but it is, even to this day, still far and away the best option on the platform. And, naturally, its competitors don’t like that, Epic CEO Tim Sweeney being chief among them.

As reported by PCGamesN, Sweeney, in his most recent remarks about Steam, compared its 30% fee on game sales to “a car dealership demanding a 30% cut of gas purchases.” Certainly, 30% is a big cut to be taking, and it probably would deter game developers from selling their games there if there were a better option available. But the thing is, there isn’t. Also, Steam isn’t the only platform that takes a 30% cut too. It’s the industry standard. Almost all the digital storefronts take about that much of a cut.

The reality is that Mr. Sweeney’s Epic Game Store (EGS) has not, in fact, risen to become a proper competitor to Steam (and GOG) even after 8 years. Players still largely prefer Steam to EGS, and that’s due largely to Steam being vastly better in terms of user experience and features. It’s easier to use, easier to make purchases on, easier to socialize on, is better integrated, often offers better performance with fewer barriers, and, of course, makes games very affordable.

EGS, on the other hand, has vastly fewer features than its competitor, and has hardly improved its usability over the course of its lifespan. Library management is still just as much of a pain now as it was when the service first launched, and the only major new feature to be rolled out since its release was cloud saving. Mr. Sweeney’s product is, in a word, inferior, so all he can do (and has been doing for years now) is rag on his competitor. 

Mind you, if Epic’s practices with its other products are anything to go by, then EGS would almost certainly take that same 30% (or more) if it had somehow managed to overtake Steam. Valve and Steam aren’t perfect, certainly, but they are a sight better than Epic Games and the EGS. It’s not even close.

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How do you feel about Steam’s 30% cut? How about EGS as a service?