It's an open question whether Epic's limited success is a result of the company's failure to "press its advantage," as Pitchford opines, or just a sign that Steam's massive entrenched network effects have proven more resilient than he expected.

It's not. EGS doesn't solve any problems that Steam leaves on the table to be solved. Customers have no reason to shop at EGS when Epic takes its thumb off the scale.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 3 months ago (5 children)

If anything, the only thing that other stores have that Steam doesn't would be games not on Steam. Even then, half of the time, they're either itch(dot)io exclusive indie titles or shitty triple AAA titles.

[–] ampersandrew 19 points 3 months ago (4 children)

When I buy on GOG, I know I'm getting a game DRM-free. They muddied that a tad with how they handle online multiplayer, but for the most part, I get more value from their store for that. It's a huge reason why I'd choose their store, because they're solving a problem for me that Steam does not.

[–] EveningNewbs 3 points 3 months ago (1 children)

If only they supported Linux. Proton support out of the box is the biggest selling point for me.

[–] ampersandrew 1 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

I'm with you, but they've got a very generous 30 day refund policy, no matter how many hours played, if it doesn't work. So far, I've only had to use it once, on Phantom Fury, which is Verified on Steam but had issues in the tutorial through GOG; some day I'll pick up the Steam version and see if it does any better. I also buy my GOG games through Heroic launcher, which has a referral link so that some of the revenue of my sale goes toward the development of Heroic. That way GOG knows that if they want all of the revenue from my sale, it's clear what they have to do to earn it.

And as a reminder, there are Linux native games on GOG. I just played Duck Detective: The Secret Salami on the native Linux version from GOG.

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