Yeah, sure. But I still have not heard about doubious methods to keep it that way. Like Lego suing other brick brands over copyright while stealing designs or using customs services to crackdown on shops criticizing their methods.

Doesn't change shit. Epic is literally pumping out free games and what does it give it? Nothing. Because it's store is straight up vile to use - no human feedback anywhere, the whole shit is suited for publishers to orchestrate however they see fit. Same shit applies to most online game stores. They are aimed at publishers, not gamers, and thus ignored by the latter.

But hey, let's look at two shops that are, slowly but surely, carving their part of the cake. GOG and Itch.io. What differentiates them? Both are trying to play with users. GOG with rescuing old games, dropping DRM as much as possible and working with other launchers and Itch by creating probably the biggest Indie publishing site ever. But Itch.io is niche and GOG is still lagging behind.

Ah yes Blizzard didn't have battle.net, Microsoft didn't have windows live for games, stardock central didn't exist,