this post was submitted on 23 Aug 2023
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The reason players prefer Steam is because the other products are not good. If a launcher wants to compete with Steam, they need to do things that Steam does better than Steam or do things that Steam cannot do yet. Right now, I log into Steam and I am immediately in my library without any ads or recommendations, ready to launch because Steam lets me pick where I load in. When I log into Epic, I am stuck in the store page with a full app rotating banner of a bunch of games I am not interested in. Plus the library is limited in scope and I have to slowly navigate through all the games to find the game I want to play. Same with Blizzard, Ubi, all of them.
I don't know if you intended it this way, but saying that Steam users are hostile of other launchers makes us sound like we are unreasonable in what we are asking for. If Epic was better than Steam, I would use it. It's not.
More importantly, as a consumer you really ought to not be bothered whether CEO #1 gets 100% of the money or has to split 30% with CEO #2. Either way, some rich old farts are getting richer and fartier.
Yeah, sure, indie games and all. That's nice. But it's all the company side, and as a consumer we ought to look at consumer values, in which Steam is just strictly superior. It has features that are actually useful, a far far far far larger library, and most of us have a significant portion of our library there already.
Plus, hey: It doesn't log you out every 2-3 days for not reason. ๐
It's all just Epic talking points. "Lower cut means more money for developers! Lower cut means lower prices!" It's never been proven to be true. Shit in some cases I'd much rather my money go to Valve than the developers anyway. Much rather fund Linux/Vulkan/VR development than whatever bullshit Rockstar, EA or Activision are up to.
A lot of these people who love defending Epic also treat them as if they didn't do anything to earn their reputation for being shitty back then.
And they pretend Epic is the only competition to Steam. Nobody is taking shit about GOG because GOG doesn't have shitty business practices.
GoG did start adding shitty ads when you claim games from Amazon, maybe on purchase too I haven't bought anything in a while.
And steam works like a charm in Linux with windows games.
Also works fine with joysticks like dualsense. (Although for some reason they started overriding the native driver with their own steam API after launching steam games even if the game is set to disable steam input).
Going more on topic. I still go for the lower price (and I tend to buy games from 1-3 years ago which are cheaper). But if the price difference is small, I go with steam.
I'm saying that even if a launcher is good, people will refuse to use that launcher. Pc gamers have extreme brand loyalty to steam.
Okay I'll play along. What other launchers are good? I personally use steam and gog galaxy so that already personally invalidates your argument to me. But I am curious what launchers you consider good that PC gamers have shit all over since you're the one making the argument.
i'm not saying that other launchers are good, i'm saying that it doesn't matter what other launchers exist, pc gamers will not use anything other than steam right now. you can make the most perfect launcher in existence, but it wouldn't matter because pc gamers want to use steam.exe - it's where their friends are, it's where all their stuff is. they won't use anything else by sheer fact that it's not steam
And I'm once again asking where you're pulling this from besides your ass?
But you don't know that. You're only saying that because that's what you think will happen. Give me a genuinely good launcher and I'll use it. The problem is that with how much time and resources that's been dedicated to Steam, that's next to impossible to even stand as equals to.
Not to mention that in cases like Epic, they don't really care about actual user experience.
You won't. You want to think you will, but you won't. Every time epic games added one of these essential features, endless gamers would come out of the woodworks to announce that its not good enough, and they will literally boycott a game for having epic exclusivity.
Maybe you're the exception, but not the rule
A launcher has to add value, and not just launch shit. Most of these launchers do not add any value at all, they're just another unnecessary layer between you and playing a game.
I agree that the epic launcher sucks, but Steamworks has also refused crossplay forever (both cross platform between PC and consoles, and cross launcher on PC, which is why a lot of the not ancient games on gog didn't have multiplayer), meanwhile EOS gets you cross platform and cross launcher crossplay support. Pretty much anyone who wasn't a huge AAA dev used steamworks for multiplayer until epic launched eos.
Cross platform multiplayer isn't held back by Steamworks. It's held back, mostly, by Sony and Nintendo. You notice that PlayStation and Nintendo are the only platforms that regularly do not allow cross platform play. Even in games that do have cross platform play, Playstation usually only allows it with other consoles and not PC. Because Sony is fucking stupid.
I don't even know wtf you mean by "cross launcher." Every source of the game on a PC has always been able to connect with other players who got the game on different stores. IE Steam players can play with EGS players and Origin players just the same. If you just mean launching the game from one launcher rather than another... Steam lets you do this! You can add literally any fucking program to Steam and have the benefit of the overlay and even controller support when the game doesn't have it native. Can't say that about any of the rest of them.
Incorrect. Games that use steamworks for multiplayer can only play with other steam users. This has been an issue for people buying games on gog for over a decade. Big AAA devs use their own multiplayer backends, but most AA and indie use steamworks (or eos these days).
Not one Steamworks game is incompatible with an EGS/Origin/GOGGalaxy game or vice versa. You are pulling this shit straight out of your ass.
Steamworks doesn't support crossplatform or crosslauncher multiplayer, period. Every game that has cross-launcher play between steam and eg. gamepass, gog, epic, etc. has it because they either didn't use steamworks for multiplayer, or they replaced steamworks multiplayer for either EOS, GoG Galaxy, or their own custom multiplayer backend. This is not up for debate, this is something anyone even somewhat familiar with steamworks or gog would already know.
Homeworld Remastered only recently got cross-launcher multiplayer when they replaced steamworks with their shift backend. Same for Homeworld Deserts of Kharak.
Deep Rock Galactic doesn't support cross-launcher play or crossplay between the gamepass (xbox or pc) and steam versions because the steam version uses steamworks multiplayer. DRG support crossplay between the MS store and xbox console versions.
Brutal Legend straight up doesn't have multiplayer on GoG because it relied on steamworks and they didn't bother implementing anything for gog, so they just removed it.
Dying light 1 only got cross launcher play in 2022 when they replaced steamworks with EOS. Previously multiplayer didn't work between GoG and Steam versions.
Off the top of my head, No Man's Sky, Stellaris, Grim Dawn, and Darktide all had to write their own multiplayer backends to replace steamworks to get cross launcher play.
Literally every multiplayer game that was steam exclusive and then releases on epic removes steamworks and replaces it with EOS because steamworks doesn't support cross-launcher play (eg. Rising Storm 2, Mordhau)
edit: GOG docs that specifically point out that steamworks doesn't support crossplay.
In the future you should do literally any research to avoid making an ass of yourself.
Yeah there's always some excuse as to why the .exe file that you interact with for three seconds before playing a game for three hours is unacceptable