I'm not speaking from the consumer's standpoint, I'm speaking from the publisher's standpoint..
From a publisher's standpoint, you also have to think as a consumer.
If you don't , you came up with anti-consumer acts like this "EPIC timed exclusive" , which hurts both sales and company reputation.
The extra 12% cut from EPIC won't justify the lost of player base and company reputation.
Let say Metro Exodus. (Exclude any
Extra Bonus under the table)
If you check the numbers, the pre-order on steam was $60 and $50 on EPIC.
If your game sells for $60, when there are 100 ppls bought your game on steam, you get $4200.
On EPIC however, $50 x100 x 0.82 = $4100.
You made
LESS money for the same amount of customers.
And does EPIC had more player base than STEAM ?
NO WAY, at least for now.
And there are some "region lock" feature presented on EPIC which further limits its player base.
(Exclude any
Extra Bonus under the table) They lose money for doing this "EPIC timed exclusive".
Then we talked about company reputation.
Although the decision was made by DeepSilver, 4A Games still took a hit, really badly.
The EPIC Store also took a hit in company reputation, too.
They have to announce the Borderlands 3 for 6 months "timed exclusive" , why not a whole year like all the other games ? There are room for speculations.
So,
From a publisher's standpoint, signing a "Time exclusive" deal with EPIC is also a bad move.
You earn less and loses company reputation.
Oh of course the "
Extra Bonus under the table" might have solved all these problems, which we have no information.
Anyway.
EPIC store isn't a saving grace,
They are just trying to make their own monopoly, like all the others in the industry.
Making Steam look bad doesn't make EPIC right.