The Epic Games Store got its start only a few months ago, back in December of 2018. Since then it has seemingly gone from strength to strength, pulling in huge games and securing a high number of sales in many cases. Despite all of the store's success, there has been considerable backlash from gamers for their aggressive pursuit of exclusivity. Despite the criticism, Epic has chosen to focus on their success and during an interview at PAX East Investment Summit David Stelzer had this to say:
"The goal here is not to necessarily exclude anybody, but we're building a new platform. We're trying to unseat companies in the space, regardless of who they are. We have to put our name down, and the best way to do that at this point is through these exclusives and to have larger audiences come to us to play those games."Despite this, he did go on to imply that the exclusivity strategy was just a tactic to build up their store and that once Epic feel they're well established they will back down from the tactic in the future. Sergey Galyonkin even said, "I believe in the future, we'll rely less on one-to-one deals, and more on developers naturally coming here."
In their discussion, they also revealed that the Epic Games Store has reached nearly 500m in gross sales.
Regardless of the claims, Epic seems to be trying to downplay the negative effects that the fan backlash was having. They went on to say that the success of Metro: Exodus has gone to show that the exclusivity will benefit Epic in the long run. They also said that the group who are upset by Epic's tactics are not necessarily the same people who are part of the community surrounding the games in question.
What do you think about the Epic Store? Do you think that the exclusivity tactic will hurt the store in the long run? Join in the conversation down below.
