Epic was already an established company and platform with Fortnite. No one was saying "Holy shit, I had no idea FORTNITE was available until I went to Epic Game Store!"
The customer base Fortnite has dwarfs anything EGS is doing on its own. You're looking at it 100% backwards. In fact, the Apple lawsuit was about how Epic was routing customers to their own store from in-app to buy shit directly from them. Epic doesn't need a PC game store to do that.
Right. Because the only binary options for a multi-billion dollar company are "fully expansive PC game store" and "Geocities web site with a download link".
Again, you don't need a game store with 2,000 games for sale to sell Fortnite from your website or even have a client that's basically just Fortnite in case your customers don't understand download links. The idea that Fortnite needs a whole PC game store to survive is hilariously ridiculous.
Spotify is involved in a similar suit with Apple. And, like Epic, what they want is a way to accept payment directly through the app without Apple taking a cut. In the meantime, they require people who want to upgrade to premium to go to their website directly. What they DON'T need to do is open Spotify App Store with 2,000 different apps in order to get people to subscribe for Premium Spotify.
I bet everybody thought when Valve drummed-out Steam with Half-Life 2: "What the heck do we need a PC gaming client-app for? It's online-DRM! There's no other features here!"
Yet, Steam laughed and kept adding features galore and had tons of sales over the years & made it so easy for players do download, install, update, connect in matches w/ games w/ your Friends on your Friends list (Steamworks), etc etc - and Valve became WAY more than just the company that made Half-Life 1 & 2. This even got some who pirate...to just stop pirating - if your version on Steam is the most updated and is the best version, why pirate?
Now, w/ Steam, their DRM'd client-app/account-based app (when used) got us all hooked. My Game Library, a lot of it now is tied Steam. Sure, I got other app's too - EGS, Origin, Battle.Net, Bethesda.Net, GOG Galaxy, etc etc - but a lot of my games are on Steam. I bought more than Half-Life from Valve; I've "bought" say some other 2000+ games that are now tied to their service.
They (Valve, once they dropped Steam) were no longer the developer, but also can be the publisher and/or distributor - cutting out a lot of the middle-men (i.e. retailers). Steam turned everything into a service, like how the cable companies did w/ TV for years...and now look we're we are at w/ that madness (where now many stations trying to go direct & cut-out the cable middle-men, as now they all have their own app's, services, etc etc - NetFlix showed them all the way).
And who was coming to the Steam Store, besides consumers? That's right - dev's & other publishers; so Valve became the middle-men by means of digital distribution...instead of Best Buy, GameStop, FuncoLand, EB Games, Circuit City, and any other brick & mortar retailer that you can think of. Literally, that cut out all of the manufacturing process of discs, CD/DVD cases, staff needed for this, etc etc - that whole old school process on PC went out the window. 2K, EA, UbiSoft, and numerous others came to Steam b/c Steam got so popular, even if Steam took 30% or so from sales. And it all began w/ one killer game and app: Half-Life 2.
Sure, HL1 was first on Steam and you could activate that up there - but I'd say HL2 was the one that really moved the needle on getting Steam into your PC.
Heck, EA needed more $ - so they even went back to Steam, after quitting years ago (over the DA2 and Crysis 2 DLC fiascos).
Now, Epic has their own store - and Epic's tossing $ at dev's, pub's, whoever...to join their "We only take 12% from you" party; and maybe even more incentives if also you, as a dev and/or pub, use Unreal Engine for your game.
Let's face it: Fortnite is INSANELY popular, whether we like it or not. And at some point, I'll bet - gamers will get sick of it; and/or want to move onto some other game. So, Epic now has a fallback plan and also a store, when gamers ditch Fortnite - as they also sell a decent amount of games. And now, some popular ones - whether we like that or not; and/or even some exclusives (World War Z). So, Joe Smoe or New Girl Jess (who's that girl? It's Jess!) who gets tired of Fortnite...don't have to really leave Epic's ecosystem, to go find sales and/or other deals; they can just stick w/ EGS.
And likely, NBA2K is popular as heck too. I'd bet, many casual gamers have both say Fortnite and NBA2K. Heck, 2K and EGS even gave NBA 2K21 away this year. With that good will, I do wonder when NBA 2K22 comes, if some gamers will just buy it from Epic on Day 1 for $60-120 (for whatever edition's out). We, as CAG's might be cheap and try to obtain every game and/or deal - but does every Casual Joe and Jess Smoe do this? I'd say....eh, probably not.
Let's face it: Epic's trying to be the new Steam. Whether they succeed or not at that, that's another story entirely. Whether they surpass Steam, who knows - I'd guess: probably not anytime soon. But they do have a killer app there for the consumer (i.e. Fortnite); and they do have their Unreal Engine (which is attractive to dev's and pub's) and do like to toss $ at dev's to go exclusive and/or have that 12% cut (topping Steam's 30%).
Money talks.
EDIT:
And yet... :lol:
The point remains the same: There is no need to create a PC game store just to get Fortnite money. They're already getting Fortnite money and getting Fortnite money directly doesn't require a PC game store. You saying "it's completely incumbent on them to do whatever they can within reason to push EGS as hard as they can to protect their Fornite profits from the hefty platform fees of third-party storefronts." was just silly, no matter how many caps you use or lines of "nothing to respond to" you tantrum out.
I think it's more than just getting that Fortnite money. They want EVEN MORE $ than just Fortnite $. There's gamers like me, who won't even touch Fortnite; no real interest in it. How are they getting someone like me into their Ecosystem? Well, it's their EGS Store; that's how, as I want games!
Sure, I do take their EGS freebies - but I will also buy games from them, if the price is right (i.e. dirt-cheap or tossing $10 off coupon to sweeten a deal) and/or if their version lacks DRM. Sure, I'm cheap - but how many others are buying regular core games like Metro Exodus or Shenmue 3 when they're exclusive and expensive on that store? How many gamers still Pre-Order or Day 1 a lot of their games?
Plus, they are trying to keep people in their EGS eco-system - like what Steam's doing; especially w/ say the Steam Deck.
But once that Steam Deck drops and once players get Windows installs onto the Deck and/or get Linux on the Deck - in which both OS's both can install EGS - yeah, that's going to be HUGE. You'll be able to take Steam and EGS everywhere.
I wouldn't be surprised to see more Gaming-based Linux flavors come out w/ say many of the big game client-app's pre-installed like say w/ EGS and Steam - gamers would love that stuff.
ed up, personally, just like almost anything corporate, but I like to get free games (Epic), and I like cheap games (Steam), so here I am! Most don't even think about it, because why bother, and why would they?
