![]() ![]() Initially a fairly tame Minecraft-zombie shooter mashup, Epic pivoted the game's focus following the success of indie hit Player Unknown's Battlegrounds. And if such an app exists, it's Fortnite. If you want to complete, you need your own Orange Box, your own "killer app" to use an antiquated phrase. Valve is barely a developer anymore: they're the de facto publisher and distribution platform for a huge portion of the industry. Thousands of developers and publishers, from world-striding colossi like Ubisoft and Square-Enix to the smallest one-person teams, use it. ![]() Steam makes tens of billions of dollars a year in digital sales, and Steam activation codes are available from dozens of third-party resellers. Most of the new games you buy even at retail will activate via Valve's system. Steam became the dominant platform for PC gaming, digital or otherwise. Steam was installed along with retail copies of The Orange Box enabling its DRM and online multiplayer management, introducing millions of new players to the convenience of having your games tied to an online account instead of a physical disc. Players could download The Orange Box digitally directly from Steam, but at the time conventional retail sales were still king, and Valve took advantage of that. The omnibus game bundle included the much-anticipated Half-Life 2: Episode 2, the instant classic singleplayer puzzle game Portal, and the surprise smash hit Team Fortress 2. Things took off in 2007 with the release of The Orange Box. ![]() Profits for digital games were much, much higher than retail sales, thanks to lower overhead and no need to share the money with retailers-third-party developer and publisher partners paid Valve instead. Valve sold digital copies of its own games on Steam's integrated store but didn't begin accepting games from third parties until 2005, a couple of years after the platform began. Those are two things that are still annoying users to this day, at least on everything except Steam, since it's proven to be reasonably easy and unobtrusive. Initially, users didn't appreciate the software running in the background and its baked-in DRM. Steam began as an online platform for Valve's multiplayer games like Counter-Strike. And three, Epic is coming out swinging with a deal that partnering developers can't refuse. Two, players are getting tired of Valve's lackadaisical attitude to its platform, and they're finally ready (if not happy) to embrace a more fractured collection. One, it already has an in with a massive amount of PC players via Fortnite. There are a few different factors that can enable Epic to transition from a notable developer to a digital sales powerhouse. ![]()
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