The great PC war – the decisive battle. 2020 in video games industry - what future holds?

The big cinematic duel between the Iron Man team with Captain America crew is nothing compared to the civil war that broke out on the PC in 2019. Its epicness was so great that it fit into the name of one of the parties to the conflict. Here is Epic Games, a well-known developer of computer games, having on his account a series of Unreal or Gears of War, decided to reforge the huge financial success of Fortnite: Battle Royale in competition with the years of sole rule pecetowym market Valve.

Over the course of twelve months, we have witnessed successive attacks hitting Steam. Epic Games attacked on two fronts – with expensive exclusive deals, and a really interesting offer of free games. While the developers quickly realized that breaking the dominance of Steam can come to their good, the players were divided into two, antagonistic camps.

Epic's main weapon in the fight for players were free games. When these run out, we will see how much this strategy was really worth.

Whereas Valve was nagged for passivity and ignoring the needs of developers, Epic didn't manage to ensure basic features in the launcher, and suffered a major blow to its image with the Hong Kong controversy, and weird statements from Tim Sweeney, the CEO. And while initially, team Steam seemed to have a numerical advantage, or at least be louder on the Internet, with subsequent free games and Epic Games Store's new features, the fight became more even.

Interestingly, major publishers, so far focused on selling games via their own platforms, have started taking sides. Epic was quickly joined by Ubisoft, and a few weeks ago, Electronic Arts decided to end the long separation from Steam, bringing many of its games back in Valve's store.

Valve still didn't really care about competition – the library's visual overhaul is hardly a response to Epic Games' offensive.

Next year will be the critical moment of the entire battle. Epic Games Store endeavor with free games is expected to last only until the end of 2019. When players are no longer encouraged with weekly free candies from the creators of Fortnite, Valve will finally say "check" – we'll see how many users will remain on the platform, not only playing the free games, but also buying new ones. It may turn out that the position of the platform is strongly overestimated, and it may become a niche like GOG Galaxy or uPlay. But Epic's policy may also damage Steam permanently. We can get ready for more surprises. Whatever happens, in twelve months we will be able to determine who won this match.