The Windows Store Tries Taking An Epic Shot At Steam

The Windows Store Still Sells PC Games?

Microsoft has dropped the cut they take from PC games sold on the Windows Store from 30% to 12%, exactly as the Epic Game Store did to try to compete with Steam, who still happily slurps up 30% of all game revenue.  The reduction in Microsoft’s take will be attractive to publishers who are looking for extra revenue but hopefully they will also realize that when it comes to the ridiculously long list of online PC gaming storefronts, the Microsoft Store is not exactly popular. 

For XBox games, the Microsoft Store are number one and that could well convince some executives to try to shift sales to Microsoft, since to them it would be glaringly obvious that a gamer is a gamer and the platform doesn’t matter.  They might be saved from themselves when they realize this cut only applies to PC games and Microsoft will continue to claim 30% of the price of a console game; but there are always a few.

The list of online gaming storefronts continue to grow, and in some cases the lines blur as to what you are actually signing up for.  A perfect example is just about anything sold by EA; you might have bought it on Steam or Epic but you still end up on Origin to be able to play.  That will change soon too, as you may have noticed an EA Desktop open beta offer on Origin just to make things even more annoying.

For now this is a minor annoyance, but anyone that recalls the death of Gamespy and how it rendered multiple games unplayable may be worried about what this will mean for your favourite games 10 years down the road.  Then there are the multiple examples of game clients leaking data, root kits mislabelled as DRM and the various scams which come with each and every client.

It is almost to make one miss the days when an online connection was an extra feature in a game, and not a prerequisite.