this post was submitted on 26 Jul 2023
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Steam: Here's a sale on a bunch of catered stuff
Epic Games: Here's a premium game and you cannot purchase it on any other platform because we paid the the dev to take the money and run.
Steam: here’s a platform. We know some corpos won’t release games without DRM, so here’s our in-house solution that’s non-intrusive, but if you don’t want to put DRM in your game, we won’t force you. Want to include a backup installer? Cool. No worries. Oh you don’t have solid internet? That’s cool, if you get the games installed somehow, you can use offline mode indefinitely with no issues, sorry it took us so long to work out the bugs.
Epic: YOU MUST YSE OUR SHITTY DRM FOR ANY GAME RELEASED ON OUR PLATFORM, AND YOU MUST BE ONLINE AT ALL TIMES OR YOU CANNOT PLAY THE GAMES YOU PURCHASED.
GoG: What's DRM?
GoG: Linux who?
Lutris / Heroic: got your back bro
🔥 🔥
Itch.io is also underappreciated in this sense too
Wait, you can't play Epic-games while offline?
Honestly, you might be able to these days. I haven’t interacted with the Epic app in years though, and you couldn’t last I tried.
Yes you can
❤️ Gaben
https://www.pcgamingwiki.com/wiki/List_of_DRM-free_games_on_Epic_Games_Store
Maybe you should keep up to date a bit instead of making an opinion years ago and not checking what's been happening since.
Also, offline play has been available for a long time too.
Right, everytime I decide I'm done with a company I make a point of keeping up on what they're doing...
If you intent to make general statements about them, it would be good to do so, yes. Else you could look silly if your statement is outdated.
If what you said was true at the time you don't look silly at all, because people don't follow companies they decide they are done with.
If it's outdated the reasonable response is simply informing people it's out dated. Expecting them to keep up with a latest news of a company they don't like makes you look silly.
That's only true if you actually state it as such. It's really easy to clarify such a statement with "Back when I last checked ..." or "Years ago it was ..."
That's like saying "in my opinion": it's unnecessary. Of course it's your opinion or you wouldn't have said it, and of course that was true last you checked or you wouldn't claim that was the case.
If someone's information is out of date it is appropriate to correct them. It is absurd to expect people to do research before posting anything about anything to make sure it is "up to date".
For example: did you double check that you can in fact still play games off-line using Epic before posting? Or did you just assume it was true based on "last you checked"?
Well, don't talk about them if you don't because you don't know what you're talking about. You're like an old man saying that a new computer sucks because it doesn't have a Voodoo card inside.
"I don't purchase from comapny X ever since they did Y" is a perfectly reasonable thing to say when people are talking about company X. The reasonable response to someone saying that is simply "They don't do Y anymore, they haven't done that since [date]", not "HOW DARE YOU SHARE THE REASON YOU STOPPED USING COMPANY X IF YOU HAVEN'T BEEN FOLLOWING EVERYTHING THEY'VE DONE FOR THE PAST COUPLE YEARS!"
Have you used Steam in, well, ever? It's literally impossible to release a Steam game without DRM and always has been.
https://steam.fandom.com/wiki/List_of_DRM-free_games
https://www.pcgamingwiki.com/wiki/The_big_list_of_DRM-free_games_on_Steam
Every single one of those requires a connection to your Steam account to install. On GOG I can download the installers for my games and then use them whereever and whenever I want. That's impossible with Steam.
Many of those allow you to copy the files freely and move them between computers, even to computers that don’t have Steam. Hell, I played Half-Life on my Linux handheld yesterday, and I didn’t install it through steam. Just copied the files onto the SD card, set up a script to bind the controls, and launched the game.
Now, I’ll concede you must initially sign in to get access to the files, just as you must sign in to download installers on gog.
I use both often though. I play a lot on the aforementioned Linux handheld, and you can port pretty much any DRM-free game to it. Most surprisingly work better using the Steam version than they do the GoG version, though that is likely to be down to the handheld and not anything the stores are doing.
Steam: here's the launcher. It opens in a few minutes
Epic: You better go get yourself a coffee with that money you saved on the free game cause we're gonna be here a while
Oh so exactly what Steam did to implant itself and what gamers were complaining about because it would "kill publishers and physical copies" way back when?
The only game I could find that was arguably a third party exclusive for steam was Darwinia in 2005, and they weren't paid by Valve to do so, which pretty much scuttles the comparison.
If you meant first party exclusivity then sure Valve does that with their own games, as does Epic and others. First party exclusivity isn't the problem here though, it's the third party kind instead.
You think Steam doesn't users tactics to make it so publishers only release games on their service thus driving out competition and bringing in more money? Come on.
Some retailers refused to sell games because they required the installation of Steam to play, that's what I call exclusivity.
They had to be sued left and right because of their return policy, they've forced devs to sell games at the same price on other platforms in order to have their game on Steam.
Had Steam been in another industry they would have been forced to split up their services because of how big they got.
But hey, Epic bad.
Yes
Some retailers refuse to offer birth control to their employees. Also, you can't get an Epic key like you can a Steam key so all retailers refuse to offer epic games?
It's PC, you can sell off Steam. Blizzard has been popping out some of the biggest PC games since before steam existed without Steam. Even Blizzard is going to Steam now. It is simply the largest collection of users and the highest chance of sales. This might be such a foreign concept to you but video games have a very low cost to sell in bulk but a really high cost to sell in limited numbers. Steam is literally the force that made games like Stardew Valley and Terraria become what they are.
What other industry? Online services aren't brick and mortar stores where you're limited, you can go to any other store. GoG, Bnet, Ubisoft, EA, RockStar... there's so many fucking stores. Hell, Greenmangaming and Humble bundle often times give Steam keys because Epic doesn't. People choose Steam and nothing else competes for the end user.
Yes, Epic is bad. It literally offers a worse service than Steam and cries. As an end user why the fuck would I use Epic unless I absolutely had to? They don't even offer mod support.
It's funny because there's this function on Epic where you can enter a code and it claims a game on it... Oh and will you look at that, they have something called Mod Interface... It's as if you didn't know what you're talking about...
Heck, I give you an example of Steam manipulating prices, which goes against consumer interests, and you just skip right over that, funny how that works, right? How about developers interests then? 30% cut vs 17%? No guaranteed income for devs vs exclusivity contracts that guarantees an income to small devs thus making sure they actually stay in business?
What's funny is that you're exactly the same as all the people who were complaining about Steam when it came out and that vowed to boycott it forever.
Your loss bud, I've got thousands worth of free games (the vast majority DRM free) while you're in your corner bitching and wanting the industry centralized in Valve's hands.
So what's the developer's cut on a game you got for free? Or are you not nearly as concerned about developers as you pretend to be for the sake of your argument?
They get money from every install of the games and an amount agreed upon beforehand. Epic is using what they would have spent on marketing to give free games, the CEO explained it in an interview.
Do you really think devs would let Epic give their game away for free without getting anything in return? You realize that would be illegal, right?
Freaking hell.
https://www.theverge.com/2021/5/4/22418782/epic-games-store-free-games-cost-apple-trial-arkham-subnautica-mutant-year-zero
Your download doesn't give the developer any money. The fee is already paid. The Developer gets just as much from you if you pirate their game, or more if you go purchase it on a different platform instead.
How many games support those mods and how many mod makers publish their mods to Epic over steam?
They don't have to sell on Steam. PC is an open game platform where you can install software from any source and run it. If I was a store I wouldn't want stuff being sold elsewhere for less, sell it there then, I don't wanna have to sell it for more, you sell it for more. I love the switch from publishers to developers here as if there is any trickle down. Fuck the publishers that never share any of the money with the developers anyway. Next you'll tell me Epic doesn't treat their devs like shit making them work loads of mandatory crunch.
I hope so, you seem to know some funny people.
It sure is, maybe you should go play those free games instead of simping for a multi-billion dollar company that treats the poor devs you just want to get paid like shit.
As if you're not simping for a multi billion dollar company with shitty practices yourself 🙄
How many games support those mods and how many mod makers publish their mods to Epic over steam?Moving the goalpost are we?
I'm not making Valve out to be better than they are, you've never said I am wrong about any of my claims for what Steam does. This means on some level you recognize that Steam is a capable system. That it does have linux support, big picture, remote play, workshop, cards, points for avatars/profile stuff, and it's on economy for items. You'll drop points left and right like you stopped talking about Steam being a monopoly despite having less dominance than Windows. Yet EGS only really works natively in Windows. Valve is no shit one of the biggest players in challenging Windows as a monopoly through the Steam Deck and why Linux moved to 3% of the userbase.
Not moving the goal post as much as talking about how it realistically works while you conflate existence with availability. You can tell me it has mods but if it doesn't have mods like the workshop it doesn't REALLY have mods. That's like saying American's have healthcare when we both know there are a few asterisks involved with that statement.