Nothing more disappointing to me than seeing a game I might enjoy… and then it’s only available on PC on Epic Games store. Why can’t it be available on Epic, Xbox game store and Steam? It’s so annoying, like you have no choice but to use Epic… which I would literally do ANYTHING not to use.
Every time someone takes the epic deal it just makes it easier to choose which game to ignore forever
They’re basically announcing “We’re a business, but we’re not all that interested in making money.”
Steam: If a game is not in our records GOG: Or ours Both: Then it doesn’t exist
You wouldn’t complain if it was only available on Steam so fuck off
Let me know when the last time it was that Steam tried locking in exclusivity deals with games. I’ll wait.
Steam doesn’t engage in the same kind of strong-arming and anti-consumer practices, so it’s not exactly comparable, is it?
The fact that they take a 30% cut and it’s used to enrich a billionaire is very much anti consumer.
I’m pretty annoyed when a game isn’t on GoG.
Where are all the memes about Steam exclusives then?
Not my problem.
Oh we’d find something to complain about.
Just wait till it’s on GOG or Steam, no game is worth the hassle of Epic Games store.
What about Windows Store 😏
I refuse to use epic, didn’t even have an account
We have a ton of the free games. They give away a bunch to get you to use them.
Never paid for one from them, though.
If your enemy is going to help you beat them, let them.
So, Epic is your enemy and Valve is your friend?
Think of it as a “this game is not yet available for purchase” seal. It may also mean “we know our game is not up to standards (it wouldn’t sell well on Steam), so we chose to let idiots at epic decide if they want to pay for it, and hey it worked so that’s something”.
Exclusivity is stupid for everything but sex partners.
If the list on PCGamingWiki is up to date, there aren’t many Epic exclusives anymore (only 26 currently): https://www.pcgamingwiki.com/wiki/List_of_games_exclusive_to_Epic_Games_Store
And, earlier this year, Tim Sweeney said that many of exclusivity deals weren’t a good investment while the free games have been “magical.”
So, it seems like a problem that is solving itself over time. Epic will probably still have exclusives going forward, but I would expect them to target a few high-value exclusives like they got with Alan Wake 2. Or, maybe they will just do more acquisitions of games to self-publish, like they did with Rocket League and Fall Guys.
I wish Valve would get off their ass and make games again so they’d have a proper engine to rival UE5.
Half of Epic’s gamestore wouldn’t exist if this was the 2000s when people were flocking to the source engine because it was free and heavily modded
They have a rival it’s called source 2. That’s what CS, Dota and hl:Alyx used.
I mean, they have Source 2, but to call it a rival before it’s even made it to third-party developers (Facepunch is effectively second party) is a bit of a stretch.
Sure, but pretty much nobody but Valve is using Source 2 for anything, though.
Yeah because it’s still in development and not yet available. S&box is one of the “games” already using it in the background. When it releases to the public, it’ll be just as popular as Source was - especially with the pricing strategy of “the only thing you need to pay for it is the steam fee” which is what, $100 per game?
A $100 deposit you get back if you actually sell your game and make money off of it. Technically not even a fee.
Honestly we should probably have more places to buy games not just steam. Because remember when gabe newell dies there’s no guarantee that steam will still be “good” they are still a corporation. So if epic needs exclusives to keep going we should support that. Competition between corporations is a good thing.
Which game?
Give it a year, Epic Games Stores exclusivity always runs out eventually.
I don’t mind it, Steam is nice but I don’t want them to have a monopoly on PC games
GoG has been a competitor for as long as I can remember. It’s not exactly a fair comparison because they mostly carry older games. But you can buy a ton of games off GoG. Itch.io exists, however it’s a bit niche. Origin, humble bundle, Microsoft store. You can use all of these and get the majority of the games steam offers. Why don’t people? Because steam is just better. Steam has competition. It has a ton. People don’t feel that way cause EVERYONE who games on PC buys from steam. But it’s not because steam has a monopoly, it’s because steam offers more than their competitors, and does it better.
I don’t like monopolies. I agree with you. However, a monopoly existing because they are snuffing out the competition and forcing it to be the only option for consumers is different than a monopoly that exists because consumers choose it over and over again because of their pro consumer policies.
Now because this makes it seem like I’m saying “steam is the best”, there’s a good bit of stuff steam has done that I don’t like. But they understand what the gaming scene is and not just see the consumers as cash cows.
Why don’t people? Because steam is just better
I am skeptical that this is the main reason (even though it’s true and is a reason). I think people don’t like the idea of having their games library split across multiple services, and don’t like using/learning software they aren’t familiar with, or that other people aren’t using.
That’s a possibility. You could also make a point that it’s cultural at this point to use steam if you PC game. The exact reason steam is used is split across many different points. However, I stand by my statement. If games like league, valorant, osrs, or anything from blizzard can exist strongly in the pc scene, I think it heavily refutes your points. For those people at least. These are all games that don’t use (or for some are mainly used by) the steam client.
hm that is a good point
Gog does now have a launcher, but you can still download the offline installer files for games.
I edited that part out because as soon as I posted i did a quick fact check. Im just leaving this comment so people don’t think you’re crazy. You were just really fast to comment.
Are you also glad when one grocery store has apples but no pears and the other one has pears but no apples?
Exclusivity deals are not exactly a better alternative
Otherwise why would anyone use software they aren’t used to? Steam is really good, they’ve been putting massive resources into making it better for many years, and it has all the network effects.
So we’re using a bad mechanism (exclusivity deals) to make people use an inferior product (Epic vs Steam), but “It’s totally going to be better for you in the future bro, trust me!”.
I’m sorry, but can we make it sound any more like a scam? It’s not quite there yet. Can you add something with crypto or AI or an MLM?
Epic has a lot of money, they should find a way to offer a better service in some ways like Gog does.
Epic has a lot of money, they should find a way to offer a better service in some ways like Gog does.
Exclusivity deals are anti-consumer.
funny you never hear about games being ONLY on steam. it has nice features but riding so hard for a gigantic monopoly is going to bite our asses real bad when gaben retires. nothing lasts forever, and we don’t know who or what will replace the current structure at valve.
not to mention valve has had its share of anti consumer and predatory practices. most of the concessions have been in response to legal threats.
going to bite our asses real bad when gaben retires.
Blizzard was a good company when they released StarCraft, so I purchased StarCraft. Blizzard is a shit company now so I do not purchase or play their games now.
If Steam becomes a shit company in the future I’ll stop using it. I don’t understand the argument of "you should purchase for a shitty company now instead of a good one, because if you purchase from the good one it might one day become a shitty one.
except you didn’t buy all your games from blizzard. we’re talking about having your entire library depend on one company.
Federated marketplace protocol really should happen at some point.
Like, it seems like a very clear solution to an online monopoly risk. Maybe I’m wrong, though.
Surely we’ve learned by now that decentralization and markets don’t mix well
I’m not following.
Markets were originally decentralized, and while that has its problems, a decentralized market is miles better than a monopolized market.
Like, are you thinking of Etsy or Amazon or something? Because those are all run by a single point-of-sales and logistics collectives.
What we’re talking about is basically building a means for getting all the websites around the web of small shops and such (or in this case all the various game store fronts like steam, itch.io, GOG, and EPIC GAMES) and giving you client which allows you to browse and order from them simultaneously. All that store’d have to do is add the protocol to their server and add themselves to a list.
Main problem I see is payments
Each server would likely have to utilize a payment service. In that fashion it’d be no different than how stores host their own websites you can order from. In my mind, the federated protocol would simply be a means for a person to browse stores similar to how one can navigate a mall or market.
For games, the further benefit after would be that via a client of the protocol, you could then download your games from the various stores in a singular library page.
It also sounds like a cheater’s paradise.
What do you mean by ‘cheater’? Like ‘scammer’?
Like people who would otherwise get banned from a platform for cheating in games. Tracking that down is so much more complicated/impossible with federation. In other words it makes ban evasion super easy. See also: email spam.
They don’t. Buy on gog.
Look at all those downvotes from people who took offense to this comment, and WANT Steam to have a monopoly.
Yes, corporations bad. But don’t forget: Steam is a corporation, too.
yeah but the thing is, Steam isn’t even trying to be a monopoly, all of Steam’s competitors just seem to have a hobby of shooting their own foot, repeatedly. Steam is trying to make the gaming experience easier and more fun, and excelling at it!
unlike some other platforms, Steam doesn’t do exclusive deals, literally the only Steam exclusives are Valve’s own games, everything else is up to be decided by devs
Steam itself seemingly isn’t trying to have a monopoly.
But damned if there isn’t a massive, very-loud Internet contingent that desperately wants them to have that monopoly.
If your immediate trigger reaction is seething anger when someone says, “I got a good deal on a game from Epic”… maybe that’s not healthy. The “Lord Gaben” meme isn’t meant to be taken 100% literally.
i don’t get angry at things that don’t affect me lol
i do worry for steam’s future, it’s only this good because “Lord Gaben” has made many great decisions, it may not be a democracy but a good “dictator” is often more effective than a democracy. But what happens if/when Steam goes to shit for whatever reason? the internet will implode
They’re in a class action lawsuit now over price fixing. They’re kicking games off Steam if their publishers offer games at lower prices on cheaper stores. They’re trying to be a monopoly.
… That’s not price fixing.
Do companies that don’t use steam offer comensuratelty lower prices?
They don’t offer lower prices on Epic because Valve bullies publishers into matching the price with Steam. Valve threatens to delist the game from Steam if a lower price is available elsewhere, using their market dominance to prevent smaller stores from competing the only way they realistically can – on price.
I literally said “companies that don’t use steam”. If a publisher opted to not use steam, it should have lower prices, right?
Except we see games not released on steam still selling for the same $60 for a full feature game that we do everywhere.
The lawsuit already has several public examples of communications between Valve and publishers where Valve is all “whoah whoah you can’t be selling that cheap on another store!”. Publishers want to offer lower prices. The economics make sense, passing on some of the savings to consumers will result in an increase in revenue, this is also what the expert economists in the lawsuit are going to be testifying.
If you’re big enough to not be using Steam, you’re what, Ubisoft or EA? (and even these are using Steam these days.)
That would seem to be price fixing by its very definition.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Price_fixing
manufacturers and retailers may conspire to sell at a common “retail” price; set a common minimum sales price, where sellers agree not to discount the sales price below the agreed-to minimum price
And the question is irrelevant. Other companies can still benefit from external price fixing.
Price fixing is, as your highlighted bit says, a conspiracy to not compete on prices. Valve isn’t conspiring with their competition to fix prices, nor does valve even set the price.
The lawsuit alleges that it’s anticompetitive, not price fixing.
I personally don’t think it’s anticompetitive , given the number of popular games that don’t use steam. I just think that epic has a worse product, which isn’t valves fault.
From the actual lawsuit documents (emphasis is mine):
Valve’s monopolization and attempted monopolization have the purpose and effect of fixing and inflating prices in the relevant market.
But steam isn’t trying to be monopoly. They don’t pay developers to only sell on their platform. Games that are only on steam are only on steam because steam is the only place that developer wants to sell the game.
Steam isn’t trying to be a monopoly because they already are one. They’re now trying to keep that monopoly.
I do, and then they get nationalized, as all natural monopolies should.
Good luck with whatever crack pipe you’re smoking
