The Epic Games Store is the best thing that could happen to Steam

By the time The Game Awards cameras switched off on December 6th, after three hours of sternum-pounding concerts, raucous celebration and heartfelt speeches, the video game landscape had changed in a massive way. In the show's first hour, the studio behind Fortnite and the Unreal Engine launched its new digital marketplace, The Epic Games Store, and its simple gray-and-white logo became a consistent theme throughout the night. It seemed that every time a trailer for a new game faded to black, the Epic Games Store emblem was there. This is a fundamental shift for the PC gaming ecosystem, which, for more than a decade, has been dominated by Steam, Valve's digital distribution hub. "Dominated" doesn't even cover it -- for years, Steam has been the only digital games store for many players, and its power over the PC market remains unparalleled.