In the gaming space we also have Steam and Gog which coexist happily because neither demands exclusivity, each catering to different consumer preferences.
Except you also have Origin and the Epic store which do demand exclusivity and we are rapidly approaching the same situation with video games that we are in with television streaming services. I have most of my games on Steam, but have had to download both the Epic and Origin launchers for one game each. Luckily I don't have to pay a subscription service for each launcher. Yet...
Epic has to pay publishers for exclusivity and most of the time still only gets one year of exclusivity. Steams strength was always the long tail, and personally I'm not that worried about getting games a year later.
EA (Origin) and Activision/Blizzard (Battle.net) have their own launchers and don't publish on Steam. But while those are some of the biggest brands it's a tiny portion of the overall industry: maybe 4-10 dozen exclusive games in Origin + Battle.net + Uplay + Epic Store, but a few thousand on gog and a few tens of thousand on Steam
> As most PC gamers know by now, the Epic Games Store has been signing exclusives to its digital distribution platform. Unfortunately, some of these games already had Steam Store pages, creating the expectation for some that it would be launching on that service in the near future. Now, some reportedly recent Steam TOS changes may very well halt this practice entirely.
- If you put up a Steam Store page, you can’t release the game earlier on another platform.
- Any patches/updates must be released for Steam at the same time as they are on other platforms.
- Games can be released on other platforms, but you can’t put up a Steam store page until 30 days before the Steam release or the game’s original release, depending on which of the two is earlier.
