Category: March

It’s been well over a year since I last took a look at the performance of the Epic Games Store and a surprising amount of information has come out since then. Literally, mere months after I wrote that piece, the Epic Games v. Apple trial began and a surprising amount of incredible information regarding both the Epic Games Store and the games industry itself was leaked within days. I was tempted to write a new piece almost as soon as all this information came to the forefront but decided to hold off since I believed that it was too soon since I last spoke of the Epic Games Store. Now, in 2022, we’ve received our annual year in review from the Epic Games Store and I thought it might be interesting to take a look at all of this information and try to answer the question on whether the Epic Games Store is a viable competitor to Steam.

Before we get to the really juicy information that was released by the Epic Games v. Apple trial, I want to take a look at the stats that Epic Games provided themselves in their “2021 Year in Review“. As you can see in the charts below, the Epic Games Store has seen growth overall from 2020 to 2021. They’ve managed to acquire another 34 million customers, increase their MAU by 6 million, raise the amount spent on the store by $140 million with third-party games contributing $35 million of that increase. That’s not to mention the continued growth of their social media which, while not anywhere near as dramatic as in 2020, has continued to attract new followers.

The three info charts provided by Epic Games for their Epic Games Store from 2019 to 2021

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It’s usually a good thing to see any market grow and the video game market is no exception. However, there is always a risk associated with rapid growth and, in the case of video games, it’s shovelware. Given how potentially destructive shovelware can be, it almost killed the gaming industry once, it’s astonishing how few people seem to even be aware of their existence, let alone being knowledgeable enough to avoid them. Taking this into account, I thought it important that we take a look at the history of shovelware, its presence in the modern video game industry and the need to be aware of them.

Let’s start with the definition of what shovelware is. While a definitive definition of shovelware can be quite tricky, it’s generally agreed that shovelware are games that are developed quickly and cheaply in order to be sold cheaply and rack up sales from customers who are ill-informed and don’t know any better. These games are usually of diabolical quality, may reuse assets from prior titles and feature numerous bugs and glitches.

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I’ve always had a fascination with VR and I believe that this new form of video games has an incredible amount of potential. Having owned an Oculus Quest 2 (or is it a Meta Quest 2 now?) for a little over a year, I thought it would be worth taking a look at some of the best VR games I’ve played. However, I should warn you that I’m no expert when it comes to VR games, I’m still missing many essential games such as Half-Life: Alyx and Beat Saber but I still think my current opinion is worth sharing.

The first two games I want to touch on are Budget Cuts and Budget Cuts 2. I’ve already touched on Budget Cuts before when I spoke about stealth video games but I have never discussed its sequel. The Budget Cuts games see you sneaking through its various levels, avoiding enemies, sometimes dispatching them with your limited arsenal and figuring out how to progress. While initially frustrating as I missed several basic mechanics, I’ve grown to really admire these two games for their humour, surprisingly excellent movement and open level design.

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