Metro Exodus was pulled from Steam recently and it is exclusively available on the Epic Games Store on PC. Previously it was announced that The Division 2 will also not be coming to Steam and will be available through the Epic Games Store and UPlay. This has got fans excited in regards to the development of Half-Life 3. Let me tell that you 2 games are not going to force Valve to make Half-Life 3 or even think about it.
Steam has been providing a platform for gamers and developers for a long time and since then other big names have tried to copy the business model and have failed. I am sure that you have a couple of launchers on your PC but rarely use any of them as frequently as steam.
You only use Origin when you need to play FIFA or Battlefield. The only recent incident of me launching Origin was to access the Anthem VIP demo, which was not a great experience. Epic Games is just another new player in the market and while it does have a promising share distribution for the developers, Steam still has the most number of games and a huge audience. Plus it will take Epic years before it can offer the same features as Steam does. You can check out the difference in features in the table included below:
| Features | Steam | Epic Games Store |
| Cloud Saves | Yes | No |
| User Profiles | Yes | No |
| User Reviews | Yes | No |
| Forums | Yes | No |
| Mod Distribution | Steam Workshop | No |
| Friends List and Chat | Yes | Yes |
| Groups | Yes | No |
| Item Trading | Steam Marketplace | No |
| Library Sorting | Yes | No |
| Account Sharing | Family Sharing | No |
| Stream to other devices | Steam In-house Streaming | No |
| Broadcasting | Yes | No |
| Screenshot capture and sharing | Yes | No |
| User-created Guides | Yes | No |
| Wish Lists | Yes | No |
Steam is a multi-billion dollar platform that makes Valve a lot of money and even though Valve has some great IPs which include Half-Life, Portal and Left 4 Dead, Developing Half-Life 3 just to take on Epic Games Store does not seem like a feasible option. Valve has enough money to acquire the competition if it needed to and I think that at this point the hype around Half-Life 3 is so great that no matter how impressive of a game Valve made, it would not meet the expectations of the fans.
The point of the matter is that Valve is not going to develop Half-Life 3 just to stick it to Epic Games. Valve is not in that kind of trouble. Steam has been around for a long time and has stood strong while competitors came and failed. Epic Games Store is just another competitor and is a fairly new one. The store needs some serious changes in order to gain traction and that could take a long time.
Steam has been around for as long as I can remember and it is safe to assume that it is here to say. We will keep you updated regarding the matter, so stay tuned for more information.
Let us know what you think about all this and whether or not you think Epic Games Store could push Valve into developing Half-Life 3.
