Before we get into the weeds on this one, let me acknowledge the obvious: PC-gaming platform and online store, Steam, needs competition. Valve’s game shop has been the dominant, monopolistic force in PC gaming since its launch in 2003.

But it’s been largely a force for good. I say this as someone hugely critical of all the shovelware and other issues Steam has. Beyond all that, Steam has been a benevolent PC overlord. Steam itself has grown into a full-featured piece of software that’s user friendly and convenient.

The store itself may be cluttered, and Valve is absolutely terrible when it comes to communicating . . . just about anything. But Steam is a pretty laissez faire place, as far as these things go, and while I don’t blame publishers and developers for wanting their own storefronts, like Origin and Uplay, I vastly prefer Steam and wish they’d just release on as many platforms as possible.

The latest contestant in the PC “console wars” is the Epic Game Store from Epic Games, the creator of Fortnite: Battle Royale and the Unreal Engine. They’ve taken a very proactive approach to challenging Steam’s PC gaming dominance. Not only are they offering a much better split (88/12 to Steam’s 70/30) and giving consumers free games each month, they’ve started wooing devs and publishers with timed exclusivity deals.

Some of the games released or releasing on the Epic Game Store exclusively have been:

Metro: Exodus
The Outer Worlds
The Division 2
Darksiders 3
Control
Ashen
Hades
Journey
Journey to the Savage Planet
Telltale’s The Walking Dead: The Final Season
Phoenix Point
Super Meat Boy Forever
And now we can add to this list, Borderlands 3.

So yes, I understand why everyone is doing this. It’s good money for the developers and publishers and Epic Games is establishing its own toehold in a market long-dominated by Steam.

I still don’t like it, both because the Epic Game Store is severely lacking compared to Steam and because I dislike the inconvenience of having so many different launchers to wade through on my PC. I now have Origin, Uplay, Bethesda’s launcher, Battle.net, GOG, Steam and Epic Game Store and I’m probably forgetting something. I certainly forget where everything is actually located—as if it wasn’t difficult enough already with my massive Steam game library.

More than this inconvenience, and more than the fact that the EGS is missing so many basic features you’ll find on Steam, from chat to cloud saves, I’m just not thrilled about these exclusivity deals. It smacks too much of consoles. And while I realize you don’t need a new machine to play something on one store or the other, it still goes against the grain of PC gaming. I want PC gaming to be as open a platform as possible. The last thing we need is more exclusivity deals (other than noxious DRM and other anti-piracy efforts).

Maybe this is much ado about nothing. I just wish all these platforms would compete on as level a playing field as possible. Compete based on features, based on profit-sharing, etc. not on exclusive offerings. I wish EA would offer its games on Steam and Origin and the Epic Game Store. Same goes for Ubisoft and Bethesda and every other game company out there. Open your games up to as wide an audience as possible and let Valve and Epic and CDPR and every other company offering these services compete based on their platforms’ features.

In any case, Borderlands 3 hits the Epic Games Store on September 13th and will later find its way to Steam in April of 2020. Will this impact your decision to buy the game? Let me know on Twitter or Facebook.