That's a bit like saying that all major parties in the US are shitty: it's true to an extent, but the difference in the degree of shittyness is nonetheless highly relevant, and a defeatist attitude serves no one.
By reducing it to the simplistic level of "everything is shit" you are minimizing extremely important differences.
It's very simple: Steam may be "shitty", but it's currently far and away better for customers than the Epic store.
Furthermore, I'd argue that Valve, due to the way it is managed, absolutely does some work which doesn't have an immediate (or even long-term) financial reward -- such as their financing of Linux developers. It's really not justifiable from a pure capitalist perspective.
Of course they aren't my friend, but many of our interests align and they provide a large array of services to me for free which I appreciate.
The only interest I sense from Epic is monopolizing PC game distribution with large cash handouts to publishers.
Was Valve financing Linux developers when they first started out? No.
Has Valve attempted to profit from Linux development? Yes. Their attempts to build a contingency outside of the Windows ecosystem is pretty obvious.
That's a long term goal with financial implications for valve - a fire escape in the event that MS does actually get the courage up to force a Windows Store layer for all Windows ecosystem transactions, as Newell originally "feared" (I question the sincerity of that fear) with Windows 10.
Companies pay for risk mitigation all the time.
Also, how is Steam far and away better than Epic, other than breadth of content, for a consumer? Games sell at about the same price, download at comparable speeds, and have similar patching. I can't exactly see how an unmoderated review system largely fueled by hatemob mentality is adding consumer value.
Equating both political parties in the U.S. is false equivalence, absolutely. But I struggle to see the apparent greater good Valve offers. As someone who generally prefers indie games my interests would, in theory, be best served by Epic's distribution fee model far more than Valve's, and the developers of games I buy making more per sale does benefit me in that it makes them able to make more games I like.
The only people who benefit from this kind of deal is money men at the publishers and company launcher. I would be this frothy if and when steam pull this bullshit.
The lack of real competition created this for Valve, ipso facto. They haven't had to pull this shit because they took over the market when no major publishers were looking. But they definitely engaged in and continue to engage in shitty business practices to suit their own ends and no one makes a big deal about that. Epic's shit is a bit more public, partially intentionally on their part I'd imagine.
Durante brought up politics as an example of false equivalence here. That doesn't hold up because far right politics are aggressively against basic rights for large swaths of people and any kind of social safety net, so center right to far left gets conglomerated together but all, generally, are better for the average person than the extreme right.
The comparable analogy here I have already pointed out - it's the video game console wars. Steam users upset over Epic buying an exclusive is no different than Playstation users upset over Microsoft buying Tomb Raider exclusivity. Its shitty, but lets not act like Steam wouldn't do the exact same thing if there was clear financial gain to be had. Right now Valve is likely hoping that the whole Fortnite thing fades and Epic's groundswell of funding disappears before they get any kind of real foothold.
Vote with your wallets by all means, but the moral posturing and outrage is pretty goddamn overblown. Its video games, welcome to the realization that you have an emotionally vested interest in a fetish industry and that companies are going to try to exploit that to their corporate gain.
