-Steam has family share
-Steam natively supports a lot of different controllers (DS4, Switch Pro) without installing another program for it
-Steam lets me stream with one button click
-Steam has a whole VR plattform and supports every major headset
-Steam has refunds more than "twice a year"
-Steam has cloud saves (comint got EGS)
-Steam has achievements (coming to EGS)
-Steam lets you earn pocket change just by owning games (Steam trading cards)
-Steam developed Proton, so 99% of Windows games can be played on Linux
-Steam has a SteamLink App so I can stream games to my Android device, even when you are 8000km gone from your PC now
-Steam support China (Epic is actively blocking chinese IPs)
-Steam has BPM so you can play games on your TV without changing monitor inputs
-Steam has guides so you can open a collectible guide while playing a game without alt-tabbing or if you are playing on TV without using your phone/tablet
-Steam has Steam Music so you can listen to your music with one button click without having another program
-Steam has developer/publisher pages so I can see what other games the dev has, what games are coming out etc.
-Steam has reviews so if a game is buggy I can see whats wrong
-Steam has discussion forums so if I need help, people can help me
-Steam has servers almost in every country (in China in Beijing, Chengdu etc., in germany in Düsseldorf, Frankfurt etc.)
-Steam has a customizable profile page
-Steam offers free space to upload your screenshot and share them with friends and the community.
-Steam lets me wishlist things (coming to EGS)
Thats for me from a consumer standpoint.
Imagine you are used to all the things you are used to on PS4, then you have to launch another "icon", but that icon wont let you have any features you have. No achievements, no 3rd party controller support, no cloud saves, no access to the PSN menu etc.
Good post!
On the developer side they provide lots of stuff too:
- they sell games almost worldwide including China
- they offer loads of different options for customers to buy your games including cards in stores where they tank the extra costs
- they offer their engine for free (same as epic)
- they offer their multiplayer integration for free, even if you don't use their engine
- they enable you to sell games on Windows, Macs and Linux (without even the need to port them to the last one)
- should you be successful enough, they change the split to 80/20 (which could use a better solution for smaller devs)
- they allow you to generate codes to sell on whatever storefront you like without taking any money for it. The code sold on your own page or gmg for example will still activate on steam. You get everything, valve gets nothing
- they allow an API that enables you to know what your game has sold, even if your publisher decides to fuck you over like it happened in the past (or if the guy providing these number gets hired by the competition)
- they provide a steam-market to let you sell items from your game from customer to customer, where you are generating extra revenue whenever someone sells an item.
- should you be successful, they will advertise your game for free on the store front page
- they advertise your game during sales
Yes, steam could use an update on the curation and storefront side but these are in the works. Otherwise, they offer you a huge amount of opportunities and services to earn their 30 percent share - especially compared to other services on the net.