The Kingdom Hearts series is coming to Steam next month, and based on the activity across my highly curated social media feeds, people are psyched. Finally, you’ll be able to play Kingdom Hearts, Kingdom Hearts 2, Kingdom Hearts 3, and all the in-between games on PC. Ultra-performance, total customization, mod support? This is going to be huge, and it’s going to give so many people who haven’t played the games before their first opportunity to experience the weird and wonderf🌟ul world of Kꦡingdom Hearts.

Or at least, that’s the way people have been acting. In truth, Kingdom Hearts has already been on PC for three years, languishing away on ♎everyone’s least-favorite digitalꩲ marketplace, the Epic Game Store.

It’s interesting to see how enthusiastic people are about Kingdom Hearts on Steam when you consider they’re the same games you can alrea🌊dy play on your PC through Epic. Personally, I’m e꧂xcited to finally play the series on my Steam Deck. I don’t have the patience or technical skills to get EGS working on my Steam Deck, and I’d rather lick an armpit than play the cloud-only Switch version, so this is a huge win.

But I also recognize I’m in a very small minority of people that A. has a Steam Deck and B. have been waiting 20 years to play Kingdom Hearts 2 on the toilet. For most people, having the opportunity to buy Kingdom Hearts on Steam is just about not having to buy it from Epic.

That’s so bizarre when you think about it. All these people are excited to play Kingdom Hearts on PC, and could have done so for the last three years, but they just refused to buy it on the Epic Game Store. Why? It takes seconds to download Epic. Most games, especially single-player ones, work exactly the same no matter what PC storജe you purchased them from. Epic isn’t charging more than Steam will, and in fact, the whole series has been .

This isn’t a PlayStation vs. Xbox thing: if you have a PC, buying games on Epic is equivalent to buying them on Steam in every way. Even so, Steam has such a stranglehold on the PC market that, despite a three year exclusivity window, it's likely that Steam’s Kingdom Heart sales will blow Epic’s out of the water.

Steam loyalty is perplexing, but I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t part of the Valve cult too. If given the option between buying a game on Steam or buying it on EGS, I’ll choose Steam every time. I’ll choose Steam even if the 👍game is $10 cheaper on EGS. I’ve gotten Epic codes for free through my job and, forgetting I had them, later bought those same games on Steam. I’ve had my Steam account for so long, amassed such an amazing (and terrifying) library of games, and grown a giant list of Steam friends. It makes sense to default to Steam.

Steam is always open on my desktop so I can check the deals and new sellers every day. Splittinꦰg my library up between Epic and Steam wouldn’t be a big deal at all - it’s the difference of a few extra clicks - but the overwhelming hostility towards the Epic store proves that there&rsquo꧂;s no inconvenience too mild to piss off gamers.

To its credit, Epic has done a lot to add value to its storefront over the years. There’s been a non-stop parade of free games to collect on🌼 the EGS since it launched in 2018. I haven’t been diligent about claiming those games at all, yet I’ve still amassed hundreds.

Dragon Age: Inq🌠uisition is free on Epic this week. On Steam, it’s𝄹 $40.

Epic has managed to secure tons of great exclusives over the years, including Hades, Genshin Impact, Rocket League, Fall Guys, and of course, Fortnite. Fortnite has been one of the most popular games in the world for seven years. Millions of people use the Epic Game Store every day to play Fortnite. The Epic executives must be ripping their hair out. What more could they possibly do to get people invested in the Epic Game Store platform? A🌱t this point, it seems like the answer is: nothing.

Against their best interests, PC customers would rather let Steam have complete control over the video game market than have to deal with having two libraries. I’ve🥃 tried to recommend GOG Galaxy as an all-in-one hub that combines Steam and EGS, as well as Game Pass, EA Play, and Ubisoft Connect into a single library, but it’s hard to convince anyone to download yet another launcher to fix the problem of having too ma🌟ny launchers. Until Epic buys Valve - which isn’t out of the realm of possibility these days - it seems like Steam will continue to have a stranglehold on the game market. It doesn’t matter what Epic has to offer, we’ve got Steam already, and that’s enough.