After watching a video review of a pre-release version, I added The Outer Worlds to my Steam wishlist. "But Tobold, you are doing it wrong, The Outer Worlds is exclusive to the Epic store!", somebody is likely to say now. Well, it depends how you define exclusivity. The days, "exclusivity" is a short-term concept. The Outer Worlds is exclusive to the Epic store, for a time. In this case, a year. In other cases, as short as 6 months. In other words, it is exclusive to the Epic store for people who want to play the game while it is new.

My Steam Calculator tells me that I own 379 games on Steam, of which I have only played 29%, or 111 games. The last thing I want is starting a similar library of unplayed games over at Epic. On the other hand for any new game I would like to play, I can probably find a similar game in my library instead. I don't need to buy new games as they are released. I don't even buy new Steam games as they are released. I usually wait a year anyway, until the game is at half price in a Steam sale. So waiting for the "exclusivity" to end isn't a hardship for me.

Don't get me wrong. I'm okay with there being an Epic store, as to avoid a complete monopoly of Steam, to keep them honest. I just don't want to bother right now with multiple platforms for PC games on my computer. Some of the "exclusive" games I could actually buy on a DVD in a box from Amazon, although that option doesn't seem to exist for The Outer Worlds, unless I want to play the game on a PS4 or XBox. But overall the exclusivity stuff doesn't stress me, because I have time. I have too many games, and not enough time to play them, so I can easily wait.