Epic Games paid big money to make some games platform exclusive.
Their launcher is, just like Origin and Ubisoft’s one, features wise vastly inferior to Steam.
Smaller indie level multiplayer games do not have crossplatform play with Steam, or other issues like DNF duel breaking player room ping indicators.
None of these explain the amount of frequency of anemosity towards Epic for their store. It seems some are in a parasocial relationship with their Steam launcher. A bit like console fanboy wars. And for some reason they prefer a monopoly without alternatives than one with alternatives. Perhaps some see the installation of another program as an intrusion to to their private comfort. Not rationally like Microsoft’s ill willed spying telemetry, but emotionally led. I encountered a few people who just don’t want to install new programs and perhaps see Epic a threat to their habits.
But I dislike them for dropping Unreal Tournament.
Buying out a game after it was already set to sell on other platforms, and after people had already preordered it from those platforms, because your store lacked such basic functions as a check out cart so no one wanted to use it put them on the curb for me permenantly.
In a capitalist system, companies get worse in quality as they think they can get away with it to improve profit. Starting your store off at such a low point for your customers tells me that they are going to drop much lower once they think they have the stable playerbase to get away with it.
So I am completely disinterested in building a library of games on a platform I see as destined to become worse than the starting line of in the gutter.
Your points are very valid and it was a terrible thing for Epic to do, but they backpedaled on that and have never done the removing a product from Steam afterwards ever again.
No, they have never done it so far. Because it cost them a large amount of public opinion when they had almost nothing else to lean on. It was a decision that they survived only because their other products like unreal and fortnite funded it.
Once they think they have enough dedicated users, who are unwilling to leave their libraries, and they believe they have earned a steam equivalent customer reputation? They will do it again.
They bought the game and changed out the graphics API to kill the Linux native builds, then after the community got it working via Wine, they added anticheat. Epic went further than incompetence on that one.
The multi-billionaire owner with the backing of the Chinese government is claiming that he’s the underdog against a popular company/piece of software/GabeN. He’s made some poor choices interacting with the community.
Yes, it’s probably nice for a publisher to have a guaranteed income, which is why they sell exclusivity. It leaves a sour taste in my mouth, so I choose not to support it.
The rest about the launcher being bad sounds unhinged to me, but some people are really into that.
They bought Rocket League and actively made it worse.
The multi-billionaire owner with the backing of the Chinese government
Who cares about the backing if it has no effect on anything? I’m more concerned about Valve having a separate Steam client for China, censoring their games specifically for China and even reportedly banning for bringing up Winnie the Pooh.
Most investments aren’t to gain influence but to profit. At this time, there is no sign of Epic doing anything that could be explained by the alleged influence of the Chinese government, and as the majority owner, Tim Sweeney has the final say anyway.
I never said it was not for profit. I said you invest to gain influence, which is true by fact, not an opinion. If I buy a significant number of shares in a company, I do so because I want more than money; I want influence on decision-making. I do not think the Chinese government is only interested in monetary gains; do you think that’s their only goal?
And again, do you believe a country/government able to indoctrinate any business that wants a share of their market, like the Steam example, is only invested for monetary gains and nothing else?
Tim Sweeney can do and decide many things, but opposing the Chinese government is certainly not one. And I don’t know how you imagine influence, but having 40% of a company is something I call influence, wouldn’t you? Even if they can’t tell him how to run the business, he sure as hell will do nothing that could worsen the relationship between him and his biggest investor, aka Tencent. And who is behind Tencent? The Chinese government.
It’s all in the realm of “what if”. Sure, it could attempt this or that, but it hasn’t, nor is there any guarantee that it would fly. That just brings me back to the original point of when a company that is not partially owned by the Chinese actively works to please the Chinese government to further their business interest but I don’t see much of that with Epic. If you look at some of the other companies in which Tencent has a large stake, like Dontnod, there’s absolutely no sign of the Chinese agenda in the games either.
Yes, and you are entitled to your own opinion, but that does not change the facts. No, the influence is not “what if it is there” – it is there, plain and simple. That’s not up for discussion. It’s public knowledge that Tencent owns 40%, and Tencent is a government-controlled entity. It does not matter if they “abuse/use” it actively or not. It sounds like, in your mind, influence is only relevant when you use it actively, which is not true.
They’re also just plain unethical. There’s never been a government as insidious as the CCP in exploiting vulnerable foreign nations like South Africa or South East Asia thru incentives that are basically just a debt trap.
I don’t disagree with everything you said here but come on, Steam is basically a privately owned PC games store monopoly that has now been going on for 25 years. Since it’s not public we can’t really know for sure but there’s a very real possibility that Epic is the underdog here
Epic doesn’t make nearly as much money from Fortnite’s players as steam makes from their users though. Same for UE royalties. I don’t think there’s a single UE license that has a 30% rev share (which is what you get on steam if you don’t have big AAA sales). Hell, I don’t even think there’s one at 10%.
Steam doesn’t have anti competitive behavior yet. Gabe has made some bad decisions in the past (may I remind you that he greenlit Bethesda’s paid mods idea ?) but he does seem to generally put the users first. But what happens after him ? Imo the company will go public at some point, and it’s pretty much downhill from here
Horse armor was a dlc, not a mod (well, there were also joke mods), and it was for oblivion. They tested the paid mods on Skyrim back in 2015 (Bethesda is apparently having another try right now, although it looks like valve is out of the picture this time). Officially implemented on the steam workshop and all, and obviously valve was supposed to get a cut out of every sale which is probably why they were A-OK with it
Steam somehow prevents publishers from selling games at a cheaper price in competitors’ stores, even if their cut from the store is lower. That is extremely anti-competitive and has to be illegal.
If you sign up to use Steam to distribute your game then one of the things you agree to is to make it available on Steam at the same price you offer anywhere else. This protects Steam’s business and ensures that Steam customers aren’t disadvantaged.
However, it also applies even if the alternative channels don’t make use of Steam directly (e.g selling on Epic). This is where the Wolfire Games lawsuit comes in. Will be interesting to see how it goes.
No key reseller/ gray market sites are truly legit. You may get a key that activates, but you have no way of knowing if it was stolen and if it gets deactivated later you have no recourse
@chloyster Still playing Stardew Valley. But I just got a dock to my Deck, and an SD Card. Moved all the remaining games from my PC to my External Drive, plugged that shit into the dock and installed whatever the fuck I'm not finished yet or wanna play. Fuck yea, let the fun begin!
No, I didn’t touch the boxes, was to scared to disturb them 😅 Some were sealed in plastic too, just thought it looked really cool as decoration in a quite old timey looking hotel.
Diablo 4: Season 2 - Still working on farming for Midwinter Blight. But I finally hit level 100 in doing so, so I'm pretty happy about that.
Slender: The Arrival - Apparently I got around to this just in time for the 10th year anniversary update, and I must say I was super impressed with the overhauled graphics. There were a few areas that I wished hadn't been very chase heavy, because I would have loved to explore the surroundings more. I guess they also added a chapter or two. It wasn't a bad play overall, and there was some great tension and scares, even if a few of them were cheap jumpscares. I've read that the devs will be expanding on it over the next year with new DLCs and multiplayer (of all things, after ten years lol), so I'll have to keep my eye out for whenever those drop.
Today for Christmas I finally got an Xbox Series X, so I have a nice little line up of games that I've been nearly dying to play. Right now I'm trying to decide between playing Alan Wake 2 or the Dead Space remake first. Dead Space is one of my favorite franchises, but I also adore the first Alan Wake game. Either way, I think I'll be looking at a good time this week.
I'm coming up on the end of Wargroove 2. It's a solid iteration on the first game, with a few new units and mechanics. It's some solid Advance Wars gameplay, and arguably better.
I started playing The Outer Worlds basically right after Starfield, and it's hard to come up with anything that Starfield did better, honestly. This is just a better version of that, for the most part, and with a good sense of humor on top of that.
I've been trying to get to Master rank in Street Fighter 6, and I'm in Diamond 3, inching closer. I'll get there in due time. This game is great for a first version, but it sure would be nice if the input reader was more consistent and if Zangief's lariat hit behind him.
I started playing The Outer Worlds basically right after Starfield, and it’s hard to come up with anything that Starfield did better, honestly. This is just a better version of that, for the most part, and with a good sense of humor on top of that.
Lol, I’ve actually been thinking of replaying it at some point because as soon as I started becoming frustrated with Starfield, I remembered that we already have a way better “Fallout in space” game.
Also, Parvati is my fellow ace BFF. So fucking happy I got to connect with a character, help her find romance, and not be the fucking center of attention for once. Wish RPGs did that more.
I was so impressed with Metroid Dread, like seriously. As a long time fan of the series I was going to buy the game anyway but it's just such an impressively polished and put together piece of art. I was deeply impressed with it. I'm also a big fan of the direction it's taking the lore into.
Edit: can't get the spoiler tag to work so I just removed the second half of my comment sorry
I didn't mind them that much, I viewed them more as a puzzle than a combat. It helped break up some of the run and gun of the rest of the game and you always knew you were getting a cool ability when you got through it.
That said though I'll admit the last couple EMMIs did give me a really hard time with many, many resets. But I did get through them. And once I even managed to get the perfect parry and escape after getting got by the EMMI and it was extremely hype.
I didn’t see it so nothing was spoiled. I’m trying not to read the guides but I do want to know when the last PNR is in case I need to explore a little.
Such a good game. It’s mind-blowing how much personality and character development they give a bunch of quadrilaterals. The wiring and narration are fantastic.
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