The Epic Games Store has seen a strong increase in user numbers over the past six years, reaching an impressive total of 295 million users. However, third-party revenue has not grown at the same pace.
Can’t say I’m surprised by any of this, everything about the guy screamed to me that it would be a shitty experience. They are using purely business things to attract users: paying big for exclusive titles (eg mini monopolies that force interested users to their platform) and giving games away for free. Neither of those require a decent experience, so no shit they cheaped out on that. Those who are just in it for the money are far more likely to end up at a “ah fuck it, it works good enough, ship it” point than someone who wants to build something good, knowing people will come if it’s good enough.
It also makes it obvious that they’ll lean right into the enshitification as soon as they think they have that marketshare captured. So personally, I hope they don’t fix that shit, because it won’t indicate that they are becoming better but just that their strategy and tactics have improved while the end goal remains the same.
And tbf, that end goal might be about control instead of money, so only approved video games can be played. Oh right, they already did that with UT because it might compete with their fortnite cash cow.
Can’t say I’m surprised by any of this, everything about the guy screamed to me that it would be a shitty experience. They are using purely business things to attract users: paying big for exclusive titles (eg mini monopolies that force interested users to their platform) and giving games away for free. Neither of those require a decent experience, so no shit they cheaped out on that. Those who are just in it for the money are far more likely to end up at a “ah fuck it, it works good enough, ship it” point than someone who wants to build something good, knowing people will come if it’s good enough.
It also makes it obvious that they’ll lean right into the enshitification as soon as they think they have that marketshare captured. So personally, I hope they don’t fix that shit, because it won’t indicate that they are becoming better but just that their strategy and tactics have improved while the end goal remains the same.
And tbf, that end goal might be about control instead of money, so only approved video games can be played. Oh right, they already did that with UT because it might compete with their fortnite cash cow.