That's competition at work. If the Epic Store was 100% as feature complete as Steam right now, and you had absolute faith in its longevity, it would still be nearly impossible to lure people away from Steam without exclusives because Steam devotees would cite familiarity, friends, achievements history, etc. as reasons not to use the alternative. Once again, if Steam wanted to compete, they could offer the game more promotion and a better royalty, but Steam doesn't want to compete and everyone gives them a free pass for that.
Consumers prefer Steam because it competes for them with consumer-facing priorities and features, and has reliably done that for a long time. Developers apparently give its competitors a "free pass" for not doing that.
I mean, if PC games still came on discs and I'd be able to sell them once I beat them, it'd be less of a problem for me, actually. But this isn't the case anymore, everything's digital. Which isn't necessarily a bad thing, of course. But when I buy stuff that I can't get rid of easily if I don't like it, it's broken or as I already said, I finished playing it, I have to have trust in the storefront/launcher I buy it from.
Re your last sentence, I've just re-read the OP and none of that happened.
You are correct, that's not happening in this particular case. (There's the "a great new platform, one that genuinely wants to do the best for developers and players alike" part, but it doesn't claim that the are succeeding at the latter)
Not all storefronts/launchers are created equal. There's major differences between them in terms of functionality/features/refund policies/DRM/community etc etc. If it was totally optional to buy games on whatever store, then fine more power to people, but having to forcefully split your library of games between storefronts because they got paid for exclusivity is ridiculous considering its the same damn hardware.
1. Are you being forced or coerced into buying games? Because it's always optional to buy games from ANY store. you either want the game on pc where it's available or not
Never said I'd go exclusive personally speaking, but I can understand the point of view of those who may consider it (mainly publishers in this case), which is basically the fact they may lose money due to the considerable difference in profit margin.
I care, in example, because it's a way to play the game legally for 1€ or, worst case scenario, 10€ instead of 40€ of the full retail price. People don't understand the missed release on Game Pass is a problem too, expecially when you promote the thing for years.
You should buy the game where you want to buy the game, being Epic Store, Steam, Gog or Win10 Store. You shouldn't buy a game on a specific platform just because devs ask you to do so.
Totally makes sense!
