Speaking in the latest issue of Edge magazine (thanks, Games Radar), Valve CEO and co-founder Gabe Newell discussed his feelings on having a competitor such as Epic Games Store.
Turns out, he is not really bothered by it, as competition can be a good thing.
“Competition in game stores is awesome for everybody,” said Newell. “It keeps us honest, it keeps everybody else honest.
“But it’s ugly in the short term. You’re like, ‘Argh, they’re yelling, they’re making us look bad’ - but in the long term, everybody benefits from the discipline and the thoughtfulness it means you have to have about your business by having people come in and challenge you.”
Newell said Valve doesn’t get worked up over competition, but it does get “freaked out” by people “trying to preclude competition.”
“If you ask us which is scarier, it’s people falling in love with Apple’s model of controlling everything and having faceless bureaucrats who get to keep your product from entering the market if they don’t want it to, or designing a store in a way that minimizes software’s value-add to experience and stuff like that,” he said.
Epic Games Store officially launched in December 2018 as bare-bones as you could get. Over the course of 2019, and even as recent as last week, the service saw quite a few features added for users.
Thanks, GI.biz.
