The Epic Games Store has faced widespread criticism from the PC gaming community since announcing its ambition to rival Steam, but top Twitch streamer Michael ‘shroud‘ Grzesiek thinks it might be exactly what PC gaming needs.
For over a decade, Valve’s ‘Steam’ has been the number one store for buying PC games digitally, with everything from free-to-play indie games to triple A releases always ensuring they’re available on Steam, in order to reach the biggest audience.
The Epic Games Store has started securing more and more exclusives though, offering developers better splits of the revenue, and while some gamers see this as an aggressive tactic to force them into using Epic’s launcher, shroud thinks it may be necessary for PC gaming’s future.
Discussing his anticipation for the Final Fantasy VII Remake, a viewer pointed out that it’s “only on PS4 at launch”, to which shroud replied: “It’s ok, Epic [Games] is going to save us.”
Shroud is suggesting that Epic Games may be in the process of securing timed PC exclusivity for FFVII Remake, after all, the game is made on Epic’s own Unreal Engine.
“I don’t think you guys realize how important Epic is to PC gaming,” shroud continued. “They will literally save PC gaming – well, it hasn’t really gone anywhere, but they’re going to help it.
Subscribe to our newsletter for the latest updates on Esports, Gaming and more.
Epic Games, bankrolled by their own massive financial success of Fortnite, now have the means to compete for the market share which Steam previously dominated.
By offering developers better splits of revenue, Epic may entice developers and publishers who may have otherwise avoided making PC versions of their games altogether.
Still, the community sentiment towards Epic is still overwhelmingly negative, partly because it doesn’t have many of the features which Steam users have come to enjoy, such as full refunds for games if only played for a certain amount of time.
Shroud thinks that the pushback against the Epic Games Store from gamers themselves is just down to a general dislike of ‘change’ though, rather than any inherit problem with the service itself.
