Of course it's a monopoly. If you want to play Metro: Exodus on PC, you have to use the Epic Store. Otherwise, your only other choice is to not buy the game on PC.
This is not a competition between Valve and Epic for who can bring the most customers. This skullfuckery is about who can secure the most exclusives, effectively fracturing the store front market in the same way streaming sites are. Why do you think both Daredevil and Game of Thrones became some of the most pirated shows on God's green Earth?
This is not gonna force Steam to "suddenly" get better. More than likely, they're gonna drop to Epic's level and start making the same exclusive contracts with developers to only release games on their platform.
You wanna make sure people pirate your game? Because this is how you make sure people pirate your game.
Either that, they wait for it to be on a Steam sale, or simply don't buy it. Just like what happened with Rise of the Tomb Raider when it became a timed exclusive for the XBOX ONE.
That's not a monopoly dude, you are using that term WAYYYYYY TOO loosely. It's on the PC simple as that, a wide-spread platform. Just because it doesn't run on your favorite free launcher as a consumer within that platform doesn't change this fact. You don't pay a monthly fee for these launcher programs. Comparing Metro to Game of Thrones has got the be the most utterly ridiculous comparison I've seen in awhile with nothing having to do with the other in any sense, shape or form. Enough with the self-entitlement.
Oh, and yes it'll force Steam to get better once EPIC nabs more developers, exclusives, start funding smaller companies for original content & put tons of work into the store. It's pure fact and simply common sense for any two competing businesses in the game Industry. Especially Sony & MS. Anyone thinking otherwise is simply butt hurt & needs to get Steams pee pee out of their ass & look at the bigger picture. Until a company comes along and says, "hey, we're going to make you pay a monthly fee to use our launcher, to use the game you paid for" then it's an absurd notion to expect anything less than better competition eventually making their way to consumers.....for free, be it on purpose or not.
Furthermore, people who were already going to pirate the game, are going to pirate the game. This literally changes nothing. If anything it almost brings a "cringe" worthy attention to hardcore Steam whi-....err, users. I don't think their going to lose sleep over PC pirates. Especially when the majority of the sales will be coming from console owners. Better yet, I'm sure they looked at the PC pre-orders & based on estimates saw it was going to bring in disappointing PC numbers, so they simply took a lump sum. Not surprising, considering this was the main reason the series launched on consoles in the first place & why we got Redux due to poor sales of Last Light. Regarding ROTTR, it sold nearly as much as the original in the end, even with a 1-year handicap on the user base (which forced people to BUY something they didn't already have). Completely different & yet, it still worked & got a nice lump sum. Nevertheless, I'm glad they are getting theirs & eating their cake too, on top of Valve getting a taste of real competition from a business perspective. Love their Metro series. As someone with over 100 steam games (which isn't much over 10+ years tbh), it's not because I like steam or care which launcher launches my game, but because the lack of competition, I welcome this 100% w/ open arms. Giving developers more options & incentives to succeed is never a bad thing. Epic is just getting started. Whether you agree with how business is done in the real world, that's on you.
