Except that’s also a lie. Steam does keep a higher percentage of the sales price for itself than Epic does, but it also allows people to activate game keys without taking any money. Steam only makes money from games sold on Steam itself. So developers can sell games through other stores and even through their own website, and keep up to 100% of the sales price. Effectively, this means that Steam takes roughly the same amount of money that Epic does, or in some cases even less probably.
This isn’t public data unfortunately, devs with a game on both platforms are the only ones who can tell us where they earn more. However, I did once read an article that claimed the effective cut from Steam is about half what it says on the tin IF the devs (or their publisher) put in enough effort themselves. Because that’s who decides this, Steam doesn’t have and doesn’t want any control over this.
Not to mention— the value for that 30% on platform + 0% off platform cut for steam is insane. The payment processing, storage, hosting, worldwide routing and caching, multiplayer sdks and integrations, and dozens of other publisher / developer available tools are worth every single penny to have valve handling for you.
I’m loving Doom Dark ages, I’m on about level 8 out of 22. I like that there’s enough room in levels to move around. Movement is awesome, you can just run everywhere. The weapons are extremely effective and your toolkit is reduced so you have shield-block shield-slam shield-throw melee and then guns. It’s pretty easy to remember everything you have and then select an appropriate attack for the situation.
I really love it. Hopefully there aren’t any more Mech-pilot missions because that one sucked. The dragon wasn’t my favorite either but you can make it through without much difficulty and it didn’t take forever.
Check back in (here or Mastodon!) and let me know what you think! Give it a little time, to me it has a bit if a cold opening, but it really opens up after 20 or so mins.
Well and truly, I love what the indie space makes in gaming these days, often more than the fanciest AAA offerings!
We don’t own our games anymore, so I need to know my library’s going to stick around if I’m going to invest in it. Last I heard, EGS hasn’t made a profit, so that doesn’t exactly inspire confidence in me that it’ll still be around in five years.
I think competition is the answer to a lot of problems consumers face, but unfortunately the “are you going to be there tomorrow?” problem is going to be a major disadvantage for any storefront that competes with Steam. It’s why my most preferred shop is GOG, because I still have all my games with them if they close up.
exclusivity deals, forcing them to drop from steam even after they first announced release on there. They also target crowdfunded games like phoenixpoint.
Even if they have fixed that specific issue, why would you believe they have fixed anything else?
first comment on the reddit thread>thlm 5mo ago Epic Games Launcher Incorrect Default Permissions Local Privilege Escalation Vulnerability CVSS SCORE 7.8 This vulnerability allows local attackers to escalate privileges on affected installations of Epic Games Launcher. An attacker must first obtain the ability to execute low-privileged code on the target system in order to exploit this vulnerability. The specific flaw exists within the product installer. The product applies incorrect default permissions to a sensitive folder. An attacker can leverage this vulnerability to escalate privileges and execute arbitrary code in the context of SYSTEM. DISCLOSURE TIMELINE 2024-07-16 - Vulnerability reported to vendor 2024-12-04 - Coordinated public release of advisory 2024-12-06 - Advisory Updated That timeline is disgusting
So in essence, its not bad because it trys to compete with steam. Its bad because they really dont try to compete and just do anti-user things. And people dont care because “yay free games I’m never going to look at again”.
If you want to see what actual competition looks like at the moment, take a look at GOG.
Couple other things to add to this beautiful list others have: meta gaming and chat.
They barely added achievements and only for a couple games, while steam has that, guides, community art, and even a newish notes feature in case you’re playing an OG game that makes you track stuff. Guides have kind of been better than more traditional sources.
Chat is… better on steam, although discord kind of supplanted it. Game based emoji, stickers, etc. It’s actually very good, though, with support for couch coop stream gaming, etc, with voice comms.
One could also point to the generous family sharing function, but I’m not sure what Epic does in that regard. DRM is DRM though. Do keep in mind, though, the philosophy behind Steam is to make DRM palatable by adding features. Epic philosophy (on paper) is to give devs a higher cut, although I’ve heard devs feel more supported by steam-- especially since they aren’t afraid to throw obscure indie games into a users discovery queue.
Thank you for these posts, a friend shared a link and I’ve spent this Sunday morning browsing over the past few weeks of information. I really like the writing style, it’s enjoyable to read.
I’ve just ordered a SteamDeck myself and have more free games on Epic and GOG than my steam library (2 titles!). So it will take me a while to get up to speed onto how to get access to those libraries and get started in emulation.
bin.pol.social
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