I honestly don’t see anything wrong with having a contract that states they would allow DRM for the first 4 weeks after launch, but are contractually obligated to remove it after. But that goes against GoG’s shtick.
If I am a developer and have options to go to 2 stores that actually have decent client bases, and one offers me better rates or deals that makes more money for the developer that they would not have normally made. Lets say the insentive is not direct money the store selling the game for less (them taking the extra loss, there is epic store examples of this already) then the game is getting out to more people who couldnt afford it before so larger users base and exposure to your gaming dev company, also less grey market key sales as they can now afford to buy legally. There are tons of positive things for wanting more actual steam competitors.
No, GoGs issue is lazyness.
Imperator rome is on gog and steam. Guess which will do better?
The feel good factor “we’re the little guys” we’re against drm, and all that just doesn’t trump laziness. If it did gog would be taking in the money on every game they do have. but they barely scratch the surface.
Gog could be the best thing in the world and have all the games, and steam would still take in all the money, because they failed to do one thing, force the lazy humans off steam.
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Well, to prevent myself from being ignored or even ousted, I will state an actual opinion on the matter.
I as a version of an end customer want to be able to have my games in a comfortable to access library. I want to be able to shop games and I would love to be able to discover new games that aren’t necessarily in my favorite genre. Steam offers me 2 of those 3 things. But, steam has been sleeping on their laurels for far too long. I don’t agree with what epic is doing, but I understand why they’re doing it. They have money and they’re new in town. I’m not about to go shopping on their store, since they lack features that make Steam comfy and safe to use and return if I don’t like it.
Agree with it or not, Epic has come into the digital store business to shake things up and wake Valve up. And it’s about time someone did, since gog is what gog is and origin is a depressing pile of…
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You know that’s a rapist logic, right? /jk
I honestly prefer having the choice than being forced. I get your point though…
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Forcing people to leave their comfort zone? Like what Epic does resulting in massive outrage?
Financially, sound decision, customer happyness, not so much.
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For Honor only does well now because they changed from p2p to dedicated servers. It was a mess before that.
Rainbow 6 also had issues at launch. I’m surprised they stuck to it instead of abandoning the whole thing.
As for Ass Creed…the last 2 only drew attention because they kinda broke with the previous serious, more realistic setting. The last one will tell you to download the DLC even if you already have it. And they also did that fucking “too many editions, here’s a chart cause it’s too complicated” thing. And a 3-day early access for the higher priced editions. Fuck that.
I am not sure why they get to criticize Steam for being greedy when the only reason why they take a larger price cut is to take user data and compromise privacy in a age where people are at least a bit more aware of how that can go wrong.
Yeah, I won’t be buying from Epic until they stop that crap. Steam might have problems of their own they need to deal with but Epic is going to be very cancerous to gaming in the future if we let them and not hold them accountable early on.
Hmm, well considering the good they brought to PC gaming as a whole, at least the good outweighs the bad that they have, even if Valve themselves aren’t “saints”. I mean who claims they were besides die-hard Gaben fans or something?
Perfect is the enemy of good, if I am going to protest Steam and go to Epic because “WAHH, STEAM ISN’T PERFECT”, then I would just be an idiot who lacks perspective and not realize that I chose a greater evil because I hated a lesser evil and the problems that they may have.
I mean Steam Monopoly is bad enough, technically we don’t even have that though, I mean publishers can totally publish on Blizzard, Origin, Uplay, GoG, etc. because nothing is stopping them from. but do you want Epic to become a Monopoly based on how they already behave? We made the mistake of letting that behaviour get too far too many times, it would be stupid as hell to let the toxic behaviour in again. And yes, I call it toxic.
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We aren’t but Epic wants to lock down and be a monopoly themselves, I say we do NOT allow them to become a monopoly while we have the chance. We seen how dangerous monopolies can be already, why repeat history?
Thing is, Steam already had competition, there is Uplay, Origin, GoG, etc. Shit even Blizzard. It’s the publisher’s fault if they don’t publish the game on their platform, I mean I would buy a game, especially an offline game on GoG over Steam any day IF IT WERE AVAILABLE THERE.
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That’s factually not true, the number of PC gamers outnumber console gamers and is only second to mobile gaming.
Uhh, no, I think it’s more toxic to support a company willing to strong arm their way into monopoly status. I mean this is a very dishonest statement.
Steam has had more than a decade to perfect their platform. It’s time to give other companies a chance and not call for their death and rally the mob when something doesn’t work exactly like some other product.
Steam has done a good job overall, sure, they need to learn2moderate better and a couple of other episodes but other than that, they didn’t do a terrible job at all. Epic is already proving to be willing to get their hands dirty to get what they want.
I find the pessimism in tech overreaching and off-putting, to say the least.
It’s called being realistic, try it sometime.
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The real issue is steam vs everyone else… since they have an effective monopoly on the market.
The publishers pick Steam only more often than supporting multiple other platforms. I mean Steam isn’t forcing exclusivity on anything other than their first party titles. I mean, at least have some perspective and not just make blanketed statements.
Epic on the other hand wants to force exclusivity on games that are third party like Borderlands 3.
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Yeah i try to buy GOG where
- the game is available
- multiplayer is cross-platform with steam
- i don’t already down it on steam - mostly. i have several copies of Dragon Age for example…
GOG support linux, do not promote/support DRM (not sure if they are entirely DRM free still or not) and owned by the CD Projekt Red who make cool shit like the witcher.
So does Steam. You can filter by OS.
But Steam actually has a client for linux while GoG still doesn’t.
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Yes,
I didn’t say steam does not. However steam is also full of stuff with DRM, Games for Windows shit, and other garbage i don’t want.
I have about 200 games on steam (say 70 supported on Linux) and about 130 on GOG. Not sure how many support Linux off the top of my head.
Interesting. Got the numbers to back that up so I can revise my claim?
Looking at the current gen console list from wikipedia it lists ~162.5M consoles sold (not counting handhelds and the WiiU). While sold units does not equal active player base, it is a lot.
In contrast, the enthusiast PC gaming crowd (e.g. the people that buy a computer capable of playing the latest and greatest, to some capacity atleast) clocks in around 35M, according to several sources. While the casual crowd might be bigger than that, many of the casuals game on something with the power of a PS3.
So, I stand by my earlier statement but would love to be proven wrong. 
I’d suggest that the quantity of those who have mid-range to high end GPUs (i.e., something say, GTX960-970 or better) is in the order of 10-15%.
I give Epic games 7 years.
Ill declare I switched to linux only gaming . So I’m one of them guys.
However, I dont like my games being already on Stream, Battlenet, Whatever DA was, Sony for (Everquest, EQ2, Vanguard). There are more but all love to have there launchers and persistent crap.
I want either one DRM or none. I’ve put up with steam. That’s my limit.
P.S When Epic fails. Where do you get the games your bought in 15-20 years when you want to play them again like I did with Total Annihilation ?
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Steam is doing good for pushing linux support with proton etc, and I hope other services start doing this too, though linux support is not deal breaker for me. I can dual boot to windows to play my games, no problem with that. I’m also not that worried about Steam having monopoly, but I do appreciate Epic shacking things around and hopefully forcing Valve to look in the mirror.
What I don’t like is content being scattered to multiple platforms. I would rather have my entertainment in select places like Netflix, Steam, Crunchyroll, rather than having them inconveniently scattered in multiple services.
This is fair. And as such I do have Origin, Uplay, Blizzard and Discord launchers. Three of those i habe and will buy game through, I may also eventually buy through discord but there is not incentive to so far (i have not even looked at their store once yet). I am not happy with how many I go through but it is not too bad. There has been some advancements too, like Origin had built in streaming in the launcher which was nice. Uplay have their points tied to achievements for fun things like wallpapers and such (not that I care but it is something different and not harming anyone). I am sure Blizzard have something too but I just don’t use their launcher enough to know any better.
In would not mind having to use the epic launcher too really, but I am absolutely not supporting the methods they are using right now. So I will not have it and will not engage in their crap. To contrast with the above they have don’t nothing good with their launcher to point at and say “that’s cool, worth trying out” all they have are negative talking points right now.
But by the same thing I would much rather no launchers at all and a separated platform agnostic friends list/invite system, stores and updater but everyone wants their corner, none are willing to work on a “for the gamers” system.
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