When browser game specialist Kongregate announced it was launching its Kartridge PC store, it was a sole new player in the Steam-dominated sector - by the time it launched, it was one of many newcomers.
But CEO Emily Greer says she isn't concerned about massive players like Epic launching their own platforms, saying that not only is competition good for both developers and consumers but that Kartridge's strategy is complementary to that of other storefronts.
"It's been an interesting year. It's overall good for game developers and at a certain point, what Epic is doing and what we are doing is so different that we don't really affect each other," she said.
"We're really focused on an open platform of the full range of indie developers that's very community focused as well as really looking at free-to-play as part of it. That's our heritage. We have a very different approach. It's not the environment that we were expecting to launch into, but it's one that's putting quite a bit of energy and thought into the ecosystem. The ecosystem had become quite stagnant and - especially for developers, but also for players - it's very positive to have new entrants come in and take a look at things and do them differently.
"There's a great potential for complementary stores and ecosystems. There are three players in the console space that have quite distinct strategies that complement each other and expand the universe. Mobile has two very strong players. PC - especially as an open platform - can have three or more. We will be focused on the open, small, mid-sized game and free-to-play and a really community-orientated, metagame orientated platform. That's where we're strength, especially in terms of retention and we can see our daily active users building. We see a lot of promising signs. But we're realistic that we're a smaller player in a titan fight."
Kongregate announced that it was launching the Kartridge PC storefront in March 2018. This ultimately launched into open beta in November of that year. Speaking to PCGamesInsider.biz, Greer said that she didn't feel that Kartridge was a competitor to Steam.
Stay tuned to PCGamesInsider.biz for our interview with Greer about Kartridge's life so far
