Valve is the only one in PC gaming to push an alternative operating system to Windows. EGS, GOG,... all enforce a Windows hegemony. GOG Galaxy isn't even available on Linux, despite the fact that it's built on cross platform frameworks that make porting easy. Proton by Valve is open source and GOG Galaxy would be free to integrate it. Heroic Launcher is a community effort that shows that it would be possible without massive investments. Epic and GOG/CD Project just chose not to.

Yeah, well, I've had better luck with Heroic than Steam proper, even if Heroic is using Proton and Gamescope as well. I guess that's the nature of Linux gaming (still) despite what people like to say. As for the practical difference, it boils down to my GoG library being safely backed up in storage media and preserved safely. If that doesn't matter to you... well, I can't help you, but you're wrong. Either way, if the market broke a different way and GoG had a bigger share (or if Steam matched its policies) that library would not be impacted nearly as much.

Epic only does it because they know they're the underdog. If that were to one day become untrue they would never do anything like this again.

Where are you getting 0.1%? According to [Steam Hardware Survey](https://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey) Linux is over 2% of Steam Users. This puts Linux way ahead of Mac which supported by Epic

I have to give it to Valve, their marketing team is *really* good.

They will continue doing it if they need to compete. Capitalism working as intended. Who would've thought

Sure, I'm just saying Epic is not any better than Valve in that regard. They're just in a different position.

Steam is, in my opinion, way better for the user (even if it may be worse for the developer). Epic lacks features that are important to me like reviews, the ability to view your library in a browser, warnings about DRM, Linux support, a hole bunch of features to discover games, a workshop, big picture mode. Additionally, in my experience at least, their official launcher under Windows is a buggy mess compared to steam.

I have to give it to Valve, their marketing team is *really* good.

Steam really needs something like this. Even the first 100k would be a great start for boosting indie devs. Instead they do the opposite and reward the big players. >Steam actually reduces their cut as you hit certain milestones. For your first $10M in sales, they take that standard 30%. Hit the $10M mark, and their cut drops to 25% for sales between $10M and $50M. Push past $50M, and Steam only takes 20%.

EGS has reviews as far as I can tell. I still think Steam is better, but this is a welcome move out of them. Competition is a good thing

Here's a different take, as a game dev: Epic actual employs quite a few people who work with Linux. The Unreal engine (and even, to a certain degree, editor) has native support for Linux. The reasons they're not including Linux support in their store front are two fold: 1) There aren't enough pure Linux users to matter - 0.1% of an already small user base is negligible. 2) The only serious Linux user base in gaming relates to the Steam Deck, a product that pushes a rival (and the dominant) store front. While Valve's move to push Linux gaming is brilliant for us gamers, it also kind of cements us in their camp. There is absolutely no reason for Epic to support Linux in anyway, and it absolutely supports their bottom line to attack it. And, no, it isn't because of any David v. Goliath tale of a little guy standing up to a brute: it's because a fellow giant has decided to ally itself with Linux, and all of us have - invariably - been shuffled into their camp. I think the Epic Games Store has a place in this world as a niche storefront with limited visibility but higher access to sales profits as a result of that. They'll never grow to the size of Steam, and that's okay. The largest storefront in the world supports Linux not just on its platform, but by developing tools for everyone that makes Linux gaming viable. That is enough, IMO.

Cause that would probably get abused for things like money laundering, since Steam is open for everyone who wants to sell a game unlike Epic’s store. You can just set up a shell corp that releases shitty shovelware and buy the game from yourself with steam cards you bought from the store with your dirty cash. And then you’d get all your money back ready to be taxed and laundered.

Steam keeps getting slammed from both sides. They keep getting accused of being a monopoly, , while also getting accused of their rates. But if they drop their rates they get accused of being anticompetitive and monopolistic. So if they do something similar like Epic, they'll go back to using their monopoly over the market to keep competitors down.