Man, these game stores—Steam, Epic, GOG—are straight up screwing us. They’ve trapped us in these separate little worlds where each one has its own “exclusives” and sales, forcing us to juggle multiple accounts just to find a good deal or play the games we want. And once you’ve sunk enough money into one, you’re basically stuck there. Steam especially has this monopoly going where people don’t even think about switching, ‘cause who wants to lose hundreds of dollars in games… And it gets worse—they don’t let us move our games from one platform to another. If you’ve got a ton of games on Steam, but want to switch to GOG for the DRM-free stuff? Nope. The devs and publishers are locked down, too, and we’re all at the mercy of whatever deals these companies cut. It’s like they’re holding our game libraries hostage, and it’s beyond shady.
Now, with the way things are going in the U.S., government protections are gonna get GUTTED, data caps, insane internet fees—this situation is only gonna get worse. They’re already planning to scrap the entire FDA, wait til the FCC and FTC get theirs… If Steam decides to mess with us, it’s not like we can just grab our games and go. This whole setup is a disaster waiting to happen for anyone who just wants to game without getting screwed over.
Steam has not (as far a I know) payed for exclusives.