There’s no reason for users to switch platforms because as you’ve mentioned steam is still king. They were the first to venture into setting up an online sales platform by using the revenue from half life to pay off AAA developers just so they could sneak their adware on physical disks which would be unacceptable in this day and age.
Valve pioneered the concept of an online gaming platform and all other attempts at competing with them have failed because there’s just no reason for steam users to switch to an “inferior platform”
That’s where Epic comes in, they have some leverage because they own the UE4 license.
Dropping the revenue cut to 12% instead of steams 30% and also waiving the license fee for devs using the UE4 engine is just too good to pass up. They also have a massive userbase already from the success of fortnite. Ofcourse there’s no point in competing if they can’t draw in players from Steam which is why they’ve decided to give publishers a deal that’s too good to pass up in exchange for exclusivity.
People can hate Epic Games as much as they want but like it or not they have a very solid plan unlike any other online platform and it seems they have a very good chance at bringing Steam down a notch. The excusivity deals play a key factor in this. I also wouldn’t underestimate the amount of people that don’t care about the Epic controversy at all giving the success they have with Fortnite. The only people voicing their concerns are the ones passionate enough about it, and those jumping on the bandwagon to fit in without knowing what the fuck their talking about.
I dislike steam so i don’t use it, the only game i’ve played from the Epic launcher was paragon which they themselves developped. The fact that i’m now having to abandon small studios i’ve supported leaves a bad taste in my mouth aswell but i can’t blame Snapshot when they at least have the decency to offer a refund. This isn’t over yet and if i were to guess any developper using UE4 will make the switch to Epic exclusive until Steam caves in and starts giving indie devs better deals.