They say: “Sonic Dream Team is an Apple Arcade Exclvusive, maybe we’ll do a port one day if our contract allows” I hear: “Sonic Dream Team is in devleopment hell and may never be released”
What’s your point? Why would that matter if I’m not using their launcher when I play games from the Epic store? Just don’t use the Epic launcher. It’s not rocket science.
I’m sorry but Epic is owned by Tencent. This means at any point in time, China’s Government can enforce trojans to be installed into your PC. Maybe not as relevant for you if you are not in a position of interest.
Tbh any stake is too much and I’ll try to reduce it if poasible (e.g. pihole for tracking urls).
Rather I would prefer to own stake in tencent :p At least I get paid dividends.
I posted a link in my original comment about using WeChat to spy…
Tencent owns 40% of Epic. That is very likely a controlling share which means being able to decide who is on the board and influence their decision making.
Tencent could own 100% of Epic, that doesn’t mean Epic is going to install malware on your PC for the Chinese government. That’s some top tier tinfoil bullshit. Nobody who lives in the US, which is where all the Epic employees and corporate overlords live, is going to risk going to prison for decades for espionage because their boss in China wants to steal data from gamers in the West.
I know an update can contain malicious code, I’m saying you’re an idiot for thinking Todd Sweeney is going to go to prison so that China can steal data from a bunch of fat sweaty dudes.
Your comment is even more fucking idiotic when you consider Microsoft works with the NSA, and Recall will archive everything you do on your Windows PC for them to peruse at will without a warrant.
Steam does provide good general dev services
GOG preserves games and let’s you own game files without pesky DRM
What does Epic do besides developing UE5 and harrassing the PC platform with exclusivity deals?
Other dev-specific platforms like EA amd Uplay get a pass because they publish only their own games.
This is it right here. Do not fanboy platform. Competition is very very important in this kind of market. But epic games is just the worst of all worlds.
Release on GOG, I’ll buy it. If not, release on steam. Otherwise 🏴☠️
It’s not harassing me. I’ve bought Epic exclusives, and I’ll continue to do so if it’s a game I want to play. I always buy GOG first, Epic second (for exclusives), and Steam last, for anything else. This isn’t a problem for me.
Well this may be a just-you-and-someothers problem the general audience (on lemmy at least) disagrees.
I am fine if devs sell on epic but not if it’s arbitrary exclusivity.
I have bought on EA and uPlay but I would never consider them again if they pay (for example) Take2 if they would exclusive sell GTA6 on the EA store.
Yeah I don’t really buy pc games before they fall below a certain price point, anyway. So I don’t really care about these limited exclusive periods.
I wonder how much these deals are paying off for epic. Outside of exclusives and the weekly free games I’ve basically never even thought of buying a game on EGS. Definitely the worst launcher experience. Easily ignorable.
I don’t buy hardware until it drops below a certain price point, so when I finally have a PC capable enough, the game price is coincidentally also lower.
Not even just ignorable. I literally don’t even hear about them until they release on steam and people talk smack in steam reviews. It might as well not exist unless it’s on Steam or GOG.
Apparently Alan Wake 2 came out on PC awhile ago, and I literally had no idea until someone bitched about it on Lemmy, lol.
And though I already said why I avoid it. It doesn’t adhere to Unix philosophy. Does it want to he a store? launcher? download manager? Mod repo? Community site? Chat program?
It should pick one and let someone else do another
I’ve been using Linux for approximately 20-25 years.
If we’re talking about what one thing steam does well? Gaming!
It handles dependencies, and it makes windows games transparent to Linux users (you don’t even know it’s being emulated). In fact, from my understanding, some games run better than in windows in some cases
If you’re using controllers, steam input also makes games a lot more playable.
If we’re talking about the Unix philosophy though, what one thing does the Linux kernel do?
The Unix philosophy better targets daemons then user facing apps. In fact, if you look at xorg/xfree, one could argue it is one thing. But if you break it down into a different perspective, it could mean many things
It handles dependencies, and it makes windows games transparent to Linux users (you don’t even know it’s being emulated). In fact, from my understanding, some games run better than in windows in some cases
Wine is not an Emulator
If you’re using controllers, steam input also makes games a lot more playable.
haven’t had issues using ps4 controllers without Steam. I even use it in Runelite
If we’re talking about the Unix philosophy though, what one thing does the Linux kernel do?
Be the kernel, it’s the only constant between separate deployments
Well I can only speak for myself, but I prefer games stores in that order:
GOG, because DRM free and they don’t enforce game updates.
Steam, because they are well integrated into the SteamDeck, they push Linux gaming, and Gabe seems to be an alright guy.
Itch.io, because lots of indy games
Epic Game store, good: free games, bad: Epic and Tim Sweeney.
There are business decisions with all of them that I dislike.
For the top dog PC game store, Valve could behave much much worse. Epic is still in the customer and game developer acquisition phase (and still behave like a d*ck with their exclusive deals), if the ever manage to push Valve aside, I believe they will be much worse.
For the top dog PC game store, Valve could behave much much worse.
But also much much better. They are really hands off with scummy dev practices, such as paid review farms. Sentinels of the Store covered them here. After it blew up, Steam removed some of the most obvious cases, but afaik others remain.
Valve can do a lot more, but what is more concerning to me is if they are actively consumer unfriendly. There is a difference between passively allowing bad stuff to happen, and actively doing bad stuff.
There is a difference between passively allowing bad stuff to happen, and actively doing bad stuff.
I don’t see that much difference. They are half-arsed about store and community moderation to such a degree that it feels like deliberate neglect. They chose the responsibility of running a platform, so need to do the job properly. If they need to hire more staff to do it, perhaps they could afford it from their billions of USD revenue.
Steam has also been hosting numerous outright neo-Nazi groups for many years (PDF) and never really stepped up effectively against them. User reports and media attention has limited effect.
As a general rule, steam discussion boards for a game are moderated by whoever the developer assigns that power to, and steam user groups are moderated by the group owner or whoever they delegate that power to and Steam doesn’t particularly care so long as you aren’t doxing, openly coordinating harassment, or doing something explicitly illegal in the US.
That’s also the general tilt they’ve taken with what’s allowed on the store since they opened the floodgates - if it’s not illegal and it’s not going to get them sued, it’s probably allowed if properly tagged. Which is why you can find Sex With Hitler side by side with Super Lesbian Animal RPG.
Worst they do is block it from specific regions if the local government requests it - see that game where you essentially play as Hamas fighting against the IDF that they recently blocked from the UK, the one where the largest part of the game description is arguing that the game isn’t antisemitic hate speech just because the enemy are Jewish. The call to block it came after a new patch that apparently added a scenario based on the Oct 7 attack.
Epic Game store, good: free games, bad: Epic and Tim Sweeney.
Sums up how I feel about them. I have lots of games on my Epic account. I have paid for none of them, and refuse to change that. If it’s an Epic exclusive, it will eventually either release on other platforms, become an epic store free game of the week, or be an epic store freebie on amazon prime. I have enough games in my library I can wait.
I mostly take issue with the paid exclusivity deals from Epic. That kind of thing can stay on consoles. I also don’t trust Tim Sweeney or Tencent, and I feel that they’re kind of openly hostile to consumers.
I don’t care for intrusive DRM, but it’s clearly marked which games have it on Steam and which don’t. I won’t buy anything that requires a second account or has Denuvo. I don’t do online matchmaking games anymore, but if I did, I’d also avoid anything with kernel-level anti-cheat. I don’t really mind Steamworks DRM, though. It’s not intrusive and Steam is useful enough that I normally have it running in the background anyway.
I also like buying on Steam because they’re contributing so much to Linux gaming and FOSS, even if Steam itself isn’t FOSS. It’s because of them that I can have a Windows-free household without any significant compromises.
Long story short, there were two main issues that people had with Epic:
they made exclusivity a thing inside pc platform (this was the main issue for most people)
Tim Sweeney is generally disliked
The first issue speaks for itself. The second needs a bit more context.
Tim Sweeney has an history of being arbitrary. One year he says one thing, the next another. Relevant to this case, Tim was openly against PC gaming back in the day, while Valve was pushing for PC gaming. We’re talking around 2010, where console gaming was predominant, most publisher favored consoles against PC. Valve at the time was one of the few companies betting on the PC platform.
Now, he’s suddenly pro PC gaming. People see this as him doing a 180, and trying to take the spoils from Valve’s work.
Then there were also some comments that he made that aged like milk, but generally speaking this is why people take an issue with Epic but not Steam
Depends on the game developers, if they offer/upload a Linux/Mac version. On Linux, you have to either install/update your games manually, or use a third-party client. Idk about Mac. Third party clients can also integrate Wine for Windows games.
You don’t need to update them manually if you installed them using Heroic. You only need to update them manually if they were manually installed using a offline installer.
Which is what I said: “On Linux, you have to either install/update your games manually, or use a third-party client.” With third-party client I meant a client like Heroic.
Lutris is a game launcher for Linux that can install games from your GOG, Epic, and Steam accounts. I believe it even supports Proton which is a compatibility layer to run Windows games on Linux (which is a Valve project that is based on Wine).
If a game works on Windows, there’s a 95% chance it works as good or better on Linux. The same can be said for MacOS apps, and Android apps, as there are packages to run those on Linux as well.
I tried GTA5 when I made an account there. The game was given free. Didn’t play for long though, and I dislike the idea of having more than Steam. (I have GOG for Sims but I don’t use that either)
I tried Rocket League at work. It is fun and I’d like to continue at home…but opening up that Epic Store kinda is a turn-off for the deal.
As much as I like using Steam, I’m on Epic’s side here. They sue over anti-competitive practices of other marketplaces that take almost triple the cut that Epic does on game sales.
If I were a developer and one platform took 12% while the other took 30%, I’d push my customers to the 12% option no matter how much better the in-game overlay or whatever was on the other platform. Game studios are closing left and right, and that extra 18% is a big deal when games are struggling to actually profit from the development.
I don’t understand why people are so in love with a Steam monopoly. Steam has a lot of neat features, but the main feature I’m looking for in a game is the game itself, and I’d prefer more of the money to go to the companies making the games.
And maybe if Valve didn’t take home a larger profit from game sales than the developers themselves, they’d go back to being a full-time game studio to make their money.
I might have been on epic’s side if they had delivered a storefront/launcher at least as good as Steam, then found they still weren’t able to compete and only then decided to try the exclusivity crap.
They did not. They have a launcher/store that is far worse than Steam or even GOG (which is an accomplishment; GOG’s isn’t all that good and yet they manage to be worse by a large margin), and they didn’t even attempt to provide a better product/service. Instead they just started throwing money in order to secure exclusivity.
It shows all they want is to muscle into the market, not provide anything better for people.
Is a better launcher really worth 18% of the gross value of a game?
If a developer decided to cut 20% of their content, and their excuse was “we want to use that budget towards a better third-party game launcher instead of using it to develop the game” would you be okay with that?
Because that’s what you’re suggesting they do by choosing Steam over EGS.
The thing is gaming is a weird industry where the consumer price is essentially fixed tegardless of platform/marketplace outside of sales.
Ideally, games would cost more on Steam to make up for the increased fees. That would create a market where Steam would probably have to lower its fees to be competitive. And if Steam did that, EGS would need to improve the quality of its service to remain competitive.
Or maybe Steam could be a boutique marketplace where the games cost more but the UU is better, while EGS is an unholy mess of a UX, but the games cost less.
But what we have right now is neither. With the customers being shielded from the price differences, the negative effects of Steam are invisible to most people and the market doesn’t properly function.
Yeah, they expressed that they wanted to join the online game store scene and the big feature they were offering to draw in users was… anticompetitive exclusivity deals!
Plus the company killed off the unreal tournament franchise because they didn’t want it to compete with fortnite.
I have no interest in supporting a company that thinks removing options is the best way to get users to use their products.
It’s the same shit that has turned streaming services from great back when it was new to now having content spread across many competing services. I’d rather they competed based on their own platform’s features and advantages than the whole “if you want to watch x, you must use service y”. It’s just a series of mini monopolies.
Imagine if they succeed with the exclusivity tactics, how other companies will respond to that? Doing the exactly same thing.
Let some years of exclusivity wars and the PC gaming will look like the streaming, a bunch of storefronts offering the same poor service and the clients doesn’t know where to buy what they want because at any moment another exclusivity deal could be made and the entire library moved to another storefront, just like streaming.
Exactly. Oh and I also just remembered another angle: their anti-linux stance. They used to make games with native Linux support, but as I understand it, they’ve even removed Linux support from some games that already had it, trying to keep the Microsoft monopoly going. I wonder how much money ms is giving epic for that.
Same reason why a lot of the non-steam handhelds are non-starters for me. And yeah, I can live without games that depend on Windows kernel-level anti-cheat.
My backlog is so full I could keep entertained even if I ignore every single game I don’t currently have in my steam library. Hell, I even ignore some that are there when I realized they have denuvo or something like that after buying and the refund window has already passed when I do notice.
They used to make games with native Linux support, but as I understand it, they’ve even removed Linux support from some games that already had it, trying to keep the Microsoft monopoly going. I wonder how much money ms is giving epic for that.
Probably none, the CEO with the small dick energy just hate Steam so if Steam is pro Linux he will do the opposite of it.
Tldr: Kickstarter Game with a lot of interest while in development announces a release date on Steam. After the date announcement they get contacted by Epic saying “we’d love to host your game” for an exclusivity deal.
Dev responds that they would be happy to have their game on Epic but promises were made during crowd funding that it would be available on Steam.
Epic replies that they aren’t interested if it’s not exclusive.
This tells me that
Epic is full of shit. "We’d love to have your game, but only if it’s exclusive.
Epic doesn’t care about being a better service for its customers. Having the game available on Epic as well is strictly better for Epic’s customers and they easily could have done that. They chose not to.
Epic is not interested in actually having to compete with other companies. This would require them to provide a better service in some fashion. They are only interested if they can force people “if you want to purchase this game you have to buy it through us” which is anti-consumer.
Basically watch games being promoted on steam pre-release and when games get popular, reach out to them and offer them money to be exclusive on EGS for a period of time despite all the publicity the game got being on Steam.
Downloading the games does not cost Epic anything. They paid a flat rate to make it free to download, regardless of how many people actually download it.
You signing into the store and claiming the free games provides user metrics that Epic can use to entice investors.
lemmy.world
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