Whomever wrote that article is an idiot. I don't buy the "media is paid by Epic" argument- not when morons like that are around offering praise of this mythical "competition" and suggesting Valve should start paying developers for exclusivity to combat Epic. FFS, that's ludicrous.
EGS remains hot garbage for the end-user. Their aim is to court the developers (mostly pubs though), as well as those shaping public opinion (the "influencers" ... I actually wonder, will any "gaming media" people be eligible for that "influencer" status? Cuz wouldn't that be an interesting conflict of interest). Even bypassing that speculation, I'm sure there's a positivebias from the media towards Epic, because Epic, y'know, talks to them. And makes them feel appreciated and useful. Whereas Valve, despite being pretty amazing for users, doesn't do much for "the media"
At this point, I'm certainly not willing to buy into the media's bright vision of a happy future where Epic and Valve are duking it out for the good of "the customers" . My platform of preference is GOG. It continues to struggle to gain relevance, because one of its core tenets- anti-DRM stands in the way of big publisher's love affair with Denuvo and it's ilk. Last year, we saw moves in the right direction- THQ Nordic, a decent mid-size publisher announced all of their major releases (so basically mid-size budget double-A productions) will be releasing on GOG same day as steam. That was a huge positive move for the industry, one I hope many other pubs will follow-and that's why, despite recent controversy, I'll probably still buy Fade to Silence and Biomutant close to release date, on GOG (despite price being higher than steam)- provided games don't totally tank on reviews. Because I consider DRM-free games to be significant added value to outweigh other considerations, including price.
Epic not only fails to offer me a comparable compelling reason (it'll be good for the developers" isn't good enough, sorry), but it also actively contradicts the direction in which I want to see PC gaming go by its exclusivity policies.
Not only that, but launching a half-baked launcher and expecting me to be happy to use it is, quite frankly, insulting. It demonstrates Epic's contempt to me as a consumer (understandable, since the goal are the devs, and consumers are expected to be sheep and obediently "go where the games are")
In order for me to consider purchasing a game on the EGS, I require the followingh
-basic features (cloud saves and achievements. Preferrably user forums, since I don't use either discord or reddit, and Epic suggesting I should have to use them to resolve problems with games on their launcher is also insulting)
-better price in my currency (CAD) then what's available through Steam or any key reseller
-a game not being exclusive to the store (3rd party exclusivity is antithetical to PC gaming, and I won't pay a cent to support it)
...
And even after all this, if the same game's available on GOG, I will always buy there. Because the option to download an installer that'll always work offline, that I can replicate, back up and do whatever I want with (because it's not copy-protected) is the closest I come to semblance of ownership in the digital age, and that's a feature that trumps pretty much anything.
So yeah, Epic needs to come up with a killer feature to trump GOG. Otherwise, I don't think Im ever likely to support them. And if they make moves that damage my platform of preference, you can be damn sure I'll be vocal in condemning them.