The only game I could find that was arguably a third party exclusive for steam was Darwinia in 2005, and they weren’t paid by Valve to do so, which pretty much scuttles the comparison.
If you meant first party exclusivity then sure Valve does that with their own games, as does Epic and others. First party exclusivity isn’t the problem here though, it’s the third party kind instead.
You think Steam doesn’t users tactics to make it so publishers only release games on their service thus driving out competition and bringing in more money? Come on.
Some retailers refused to sell games because they required the installation of Steam to play, that’s what I call exclusivity.
They had to be sued left and right because of their return policy, they’ve forced devs to sell games at the same price on other platforms in order to have their game on Steam.
Had Steam been in another industry they would have been forced to split up their services because of how big they got.
But hey, Epic bad.
It’s funny because there’s this function on Epic where you can enter a code and it claims a game on it… Oh and will you look at that, they have something called Mod Interface… It’s as if you didn’t know what you’re talking about…
Heck, I give you an example of Steam manipulating prices, which goes against consumer interests, and you just skip right over that, funny how that works, right? How about developers interests then? 30% cut vs 17%? No guaranteed income for devs vs exclusivity contracts that guarantees an income to small devs thus making sure they actually stay in business?
What’s funny is that you’re exactly the same as all the people who were complaining about Steam when it came out and that vowed to boycott it forever.
Your loss bud, I’ve got thousands worth of free games (the vast majority DRM free) while you’re in your corner bitching and wanting the industry centralized in Valve’s hands.