I mean it’s not like Epic does anything to help sales, they just give devs slightly more of the money. Or at least it cannot prove that. Their store is so badly organized that the reduction in discovery and the Sweeney-created (and in fact at this point seemingly deliberate) negative association of the epic store and in particular exclusivity on it, it’s impossible for a company to judge whether the 25.7% increased money (70%->88%) is not easily eaten up by the loss in sales compared to other stores.
Valve can also trivially point to all the stuff Steam provides like forums, mod integration and streaming to justify higher cost, and Sweeney suspiciously never talks about that. I bet if he had to, he’d have to admit that he actually provides less value with his baby store considering how little devs get for the 12% taken compared to what Valve provides for the 30% they take.
Is it cool that stores take 30%? No.
Can I, as a gamer, judge whether it’s a valid amount of even one worthy of critique in particular comparing brick&mortar supply chains (his 75%-loss-criticism is a false equivalence, as the extra costs he adds existed with physical stores, too)? No, I cannot.
Does it feel to me as a gamer that I get “more” buying a game on Steam than on Epic? For sure! Sometimes I can get it cheaper on Epic, which might be worth it compared to having stuff like workshop integration or prompt updates on Steam. Or it might not be, that’s something everyone has to judge.
For me personally, my takeaway from Sweeney’s baby trantrum antics and aggressive exclusivity has been this:
I window-shop on all digital store fronts.
I select where to buy based on isthereanydeal, with no particular weight given to any store except a little one towards GOG because I get actual installers for offline storage there.
However, Epic is explicitly excluded. I browse there, I take the freebies, I don’t buy there. The only money Swine-y ever got from my was the 7€ when that bug around Death Stranding happened and I didn’t realize my free game actually cost me money instead of being free.
His criticism might be valid. Or not. I cannot judge that. Regardless, he’s an asshole and his shop is terrible for me as a customer comparing the alternatives.