That sure looks like what a legit competing shop would do. And making sales out of your own pocket incurring in a loss with each game sold. And getting exclusives for more money than they will make in their whole lifetime just so the other shops don't get it too.
Promoting this kind of unfair competition is what you get into trouble in the long run.
Its called investment and strategy, and Epic is not being secretive about it either. This is not unfair competition... Valve could do the same thing tomorrow. Or EA. Or Ubisoft. All deep pockets and all playing by the rules. Exclusivity is normal and it happens everywhere, it is a generally, widely accepted phenomenon in business. Somehow, in gaming it is not? That is one heavy rock you've been under... Its not even an exclusivity towards us, the customer, because we can just enter the service freely with no strings attached; heck, we even get rewarded for it. You or I are not part of those exclusivity deals, why would we care? We never used to care; there have been consoles around locking us out of content ten times harder. Want to come in? Pony up 300-600 bucks first, thx. Oh you want online? Add sub pls, thx. Or what about cloud services? Pay monthly to enter. And note: they are cutting up content releases too to push those services. No freebies. Maybe a discount when you join, or a 1 dollar tryout period. Gone? Poof, gone is all you've done. Want game X, Y and Z too? Please take premium membership, oh and we actually don't even have game Z, you need another service for that... and by the by, game Y is going to get taken off in two weeks, so be quick about it...
Epic's agenda is very clear, and its agenda is beneficial to the end customer, us. Have you not noticed how suddenly a whole range of non-MTX driven content is getting much more exposure? The 'real' games, with no strings attached. The adventures, single player focused, 'pretty and kind' type of games, there is a much greater variety on a front page of an Epic Store than what you can find on EA, Ubisoft, or even Steam. Steam probably has a similar offering, but it is so fragmented you can't find the better half of it, and the other half is ancient.
IF that even gets us into trouble in the long run, let's at least enjoy it while it lasts. But if you speak of 'good and fair competition'... I think EGS and the type of product it highlights is the very definition of it. The real scam is not in the Stores, its in the games, and those games are handily, largely avoided by Epic. This does not even take into account the obvious financial benefit which will ultimately benefit end users too; after all, if you can shave 15-20% off your marketing budget, there is spare money that can go into anything to make a better product. In addition, if the Store is willing to guarantee a base income of sales, its easier to take a risk with a somewhat 'less popular' type of game concept. These are all things we should applaud, not block.
Its simple: they found a win-win situation with tons of (independant) publishers, and it enriches the market, not just with the games, but with the very necessary reality check on what people look for in gaming. I hope they thrive. And by the way... using your profits from a successful release to fund the next venture has been the standard procedure for game publishers since...well, forever.
Epic is no different than Valve in that regard, and they might evolve into a similar sleeping giant over time, who knows. If you fight Epic now, in the current state of the market, with cloud services pushing out fair game development, you've seriously, utterly lost sight of reality. Sweeney saw it coming and acted upon it.
