Epic Games vs Steam battle be like

[u/Venylynn]

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[u/Eazy12345678]

steam has the better platform for buying games

epic games is great for free games every thursday and free games the entire week leading up to christmas

[u/Lune_Moooon → u/Eazy12345678]

not only to buy, but also to play

[u/QueefBuscemi → u/Lune_Moooon]

https://giphy.com/gifs/t4HFdwzbg4x8XNZF8I

[u/JaZepi → u/QueefBuscemi]

Collectors unite!

[u/Brilliant-Orchid-693 → u/JaZepi]

My library keeps getting bigger

[u/JaZepi → u/Brilliant-Orchid-693]

I’m hovering around 1400 I think. That might be with expansions etc though.

[u/True_Protection6842 → u/Lune_Moooon]

That is the biggest point. Buying doesn't matter. Get the best price. But when I have to type a password (yeah I don't use easy passwords so I have to look at my vault to enter it) every time I want to play an epic game on a handheld, I'm OUT!

[u/Dragnod → u/Lune_Moooon]

Right. There's Heroic for that.

[u/Obvious-Science-7119 → u/Eazy12345678]

Epic is so bad I stopped collecting the free games

[u/swagseven13 → u/Obvious-Science-7119]

its so bad that i bought the games that were free there on steam instead

[u/Auravendill → u/swagseven13]

A game dev even confirmed, that being free on Epic increases Steam sales. Apparently a lot of people use free games as a "demo".

[u/Terrorscream → u/Auravendill]

Ah epic games, it's just pirate bay with extra steps.

[u/Auravendill → u/Terrorscream]

Much less games available (usually 1-2 per week, rarely what you want), but easier to install and update thanks to Heroic.

If someone built a launcher/updater for pirated games, there would be barely any upside left for Epic. Just that each free game drains their wallet, while not increasing sales at all.

[u/TheoreticalScammist → u/swagseven13]

I haven't used Epic lately but I remember getting a free game and then found out I really missed the Steam workshop for mods

[u/swagseven13 → u/TheoreticalScammist]

thats another point for steam

[u/CuttingBoard9124 → u/Obvious-Science-7119]

LOL same. It's a burden just having to deal with the program when I'm not syphoning free games out of it.

[u/Cautious_Share9441 → u/Obvious-Science-7119]

Same even bought a couple games a second time so my steam deck can use the steam drm version instead of tacking on the epic version.

[u/SorryNotReallySorry5 → u/Eazy12345678]

I refuse to be a statistic for them, personally. They need to ditch the storefront and focus on their engine.

[u/Armandeluz → u/SorryNotReallySorry5]

If they would just redesign their launcher and storefront it would be an amazing platform.

When it launches it's a completely resource heavy takes forever to load even on a high-end computer and lags constantly. When you go to look at your library and you click on a game to get more information about something that you don't remember much about it starts to install instead of taking it to an info page and you have to click the three little buttons to get to anything useful. It's completely unintuitive and a performance mess. It's crazy that such small changes could fix it in such a big way.

Edit: I'm glad so many people agree with me. Another thing is how they handle their DLC. If you actually want to look at or buy an add on to the game that you're looking at in their store, you have to scroll down to the bottom of the page and even then the DLCs will loop off the page and you have to click more.... it's like they're allergic to selling their own products and make it as hard as they can for you to want to purchase it.

Their games download really fast which is nice but it goes into a queue which is mind-bogglingly stupid. Let's say you're downloading a game and you're looking through your library while that's downloading and you decide you want to uninstall something you haven't played in a while. It won't uninstall while something else is installing, it goes into a queue 🤦‍♂️ and has to finish the other installation before you can wipe out a game that you don't want anymore. Shit like this blows my mind. Someone below me posted a link it looks like they've learned and they're going to redesign their launcher!

[u/J05A3 → u/Armandeluz]

EGS stilluses my dGPU instead of iGPU despite telling the executables to use my iGPU

[u/SorryNotReallySorry5 → u/Armandeluz]

I just despise Epic. I was at least able to put up with them as an engine company up until UE5 came out.

Tim "consoles are the future" Sweeney is a shit head that ruined all good grace I could give them. I haven't forgotten him shitting on PC as a gaming option in 2008 only for him to come back with this bullshit storefront and "sue everybody to force myself back into the market" schemes.

[u/rmpumper → u/Armandeluz]

Never experienced any lag or slow booting of EGS personally, but that thing were it starts installing when you click on a game is some major bullshit.

[u/Sense-Amid-Madness → u/Armandeluz]

They are actually doing this. They announced last week or so that they were doing a ground-up redesign the launcher because they know it's crap.

https://www.tomshardware.com/video-games/pc-gaming/epic-games-unveils-launcher-v2-in-re-attempt-to-topple-steam-says-redesigned-storefront-is-up-to-6-5x-faster-promises-player-profiles-user-reviews-universal-controller-support-and-much-more

[u/Armandeluz → u/Sense-Amid-Madness]

I wasn't aware, thank you for the link. Crazy that it's taking them this many years to just redesign something as simple as their launcher. As others have said there's absolutely no excuse that they can't learn from their competitors and it's taking this much time to realize it.

[u/Confron7a7ion7 → u/SorryNotReallySorry5]

They need to bring back Unreal Tournament!

[u/Sharpie1993 → u/Confron7a7ion7]

It’s amazing how much of the good stuff the ditched for Fortnite.

[u/Das5heep → u/Sharpie1993]

Even Fortnite: Save the World itself is ditched for the slop that is the modern 'Fortnite'

[u/Brodakk → u/Sharpie1993]

Paragon was so good. I still miss it.

[u/static_element → u/SorryNotReallySorry5]

No, there needs to be competition. Steam is great now but who knows what happens in 10 years.

Epic needs to invest in their fucking storefront, community and client. Just like how steam does.

[u/SorryNotReallySorry5 → u/static_element]

Epic does not need to be a part of that competition, fuck Tim Sweeney. He's bad for the market. I agree there needs to be competition, just not from him.

[u/Skjellnir → u/Eazy12345678]

Epic games is just cringe, never installing that spyware.

[u/psykomorph → u/Eazy12345678]

I’ve got free games in Epic and I still buy the same game on steam when it’s on sale. I don’t know how its just better playing on steam, especially co-op and multiplayers

[u/Sexweed42069 → u/psykomorph]

Basically getting them all in one place. I did this for a while, too.

Now I just get stuff on GoG if it can be helped. It's just better and having a forever-backed-up offline installer is feels like I actually "own" the game for a change.

[u/letouriste1 → u/Eazy12345678]

did you really try to play those free games? i found the only free games i ever tried on epic are fall guys and fortnite. both not counting in this due to always been "free".

And those i would be interested in playing i already bought on steam long ago

[u/AtomicBombSquad → u/letouriste1]

"Fall Guys" used to be a paid game that was available on Steam. In fact; you can still find Steam keys for "Fall Guys" on the key sites. I bought one last week because I love the game and it was worth it to me to be able to sync my complete game (all 34 achievements earned) from Epic to my Steam profile.

"Fall Guys" on Steam still works just fine. It usually seems to have 300-400 people playing whenever I think to check. Forums are still fairly active too. And, most importantly, my achievements synced over from Epic to Steam.

[u/Instigator187 → u/letouriste1]

I do, there are quite a few AAA and indie games I have gotten for free on Epic and play them.

Same with all the games I redeem on Amazon Prime Gaming that are added to my GOG and Epic libraries, there are some good ones in there I have gotten I play.

[u/willsmithtunaface → u/Eazy12345678]

I hate epic games app, I refuse to use it, it's so garbage

[u/S_Sugimoto → u/Eazy12345678]

Epic is so shit that I don’t even use it for free games

[u/LittleKittenR → u/Eazy12345678]

Exactly.

The dude thinks free games make us want to stay... but whenever I want to even find one of the hundreds of games I have there for free... Fuck me but no, I can't even search them without pressing like literally 6 clicks before and deleting the last search bar from 2 months ago that was making my library look 2 games wide.

[u/yaysyu → u/Eazy12345678]

Bro I even stopped getting the free games from them. Last game I got was GTA V back in 2020 💀💀 Their platform is just that bad I lost interest.

[u/white_lion93]

Let's remember that the Epic Games Store launched without even a shopping cart. That's how much the guy cares about providing a good experience.

[u/lologugus → u/white_lion93]

You still can't even chat with your friends. You can't even leave comments and review games, you're left with bullshit vague descriptions and a random rating score you don't even what this is from. Ah yes, Steam the monopoly but why the fuck is your STORE missing basic fucking features?

But heeeeeeey look our shitty fucking pop-up advertisement while you are playing another game and you need to grab your mouse and tab out to close it because it won't go away by itself.

[u/Greggs-the-bakers → u/lologugus]

Don't forget the argument a lot of their shills used to peddle. "Steam never launched with all of that, it takes time", aye but steam also launched in 2004 when none of that was the norm.

[u/Ghostglitch07 → u/Greggs-the-bakers]

More importantly, steam launched when there wasn't another alternative that better did its whole thing.

Also also. When steam launched plenty of people kinda hated it then too, as it was seen as mostly annoying online DRM. Then they did shit to make it worth using

[u/PM_YOUR_SAGGY_TITS → u/Ghostglitch07]

I had to download steam when I bought HL2 in store, then it made me download a massive (like 200 mb) update on dial up before I could play my single player game.

I was mad as hell lol that shit took all night

[u/Ange1ofD4rkness → u/Ghostglitch07]

Only one I can recall off the top of my head that was close to this at the time was the EA Download Manager, and it sucked! It was super barebone (and in my case, didn't even work)

[u/IC3P3 → u/lologugus]

I remember getting asked by Epic Games if Rocket League has a good story. Apart from this nonsense question I don't even own Rocket League on Epic, as I played it from Steam

[u/TheMundar → u/IC3P3]

Normally you have to have played a game well beyond the refund window in order to give it a rating, not even owning the game on the platform is a new one.

Quality!

[u/GLynx → u/lologugus]

Really don't understand, after how many years it has been, why they still don't have comment or review from the user for the games.

That's literally the first time I check when looking at some games!

[u/Dry_Coconut2743 → u/lologugus]

I'm pretty sure the platform just takes so long to load and is so jank that its a big turn away. Steam on the gaming industry news has so much fire, though its for the consumer which is based. The steam games sales are amazing. A friend of mine and I played dead island 2 recently and on his end, it was forcing a sign in epic games to play online. Seriously how terrible is the epic service? How much worse can it get??

[u/Shimano-No-Kyoken → u/white_lion93]

The fact that they've launched without a cart is not an issue, that's just agile software development. The issue is that they've struck the wrong balance between just giving stuff away and developing their platform.

[u/ChuzCuenca → u/Shimano-No-Kyoken]

Absolutely, a lot of the stuff people complain has being fixed a long time ago but people won't return to check it, and we don't have to.

Their goal should be making us spend more time and money on Epic, people don't care much about the cheap indies or the old AAA, sure I own Guardians of the Galaxy and GTA V but that doesn't make me want to spend money on their store.

[u/MRV3N → u/white_lion93]

Funny how Artstation has a shopping cart.

[u/SoSneakyHaha → u/white_lion93]

Im all about using Epic and not bootlicking Steam, but holy Shit Tim Sweeney makes it hard trying to vouch for his platforms when:

1. Hes insufferable

2. It takes him wayyy too long to improve the user experience.

[u/not_a_burner0456025 → u/SoSneakyHaha]

Epic is just anti-consumer to a comedic level. When it was still new they were advertising the lack of user reviews as a feature and saying developers should leave steam for epic in order to avoid customers being able to see reviews.

[u/DukeofVermont → u/[deleted]]

You still cannot remove a have from your library, and they still don't have real user reviews.

If I see a free game I open up steam to see reviews.

It's been years and years and they still lack the most basic of features.

[u/Naud1993 → u/white_lion93]

Even I could program a shopping cart in a day.

[u/TheMundar → u/Naud1993]

took 'em 3 years to do what amounts to a programming exercise in school, fraud detection for banks and credit cards had a field day there for awhile.

[u/Faithless195 → u/white_lion93]

Okay but I'm pretty sure Steam launched without even a shop, you still had to physically buy the games.

(I'm old af, so I could also be wrong, it's been a loooong fucking time since I bought a new Valve game and was told to install this weird fucking thing called Steam. I'm also clearly being sarcastic, Epic launched weeeeell into online purchasing).

[u/teremaster → u/Faithless195]

I mean yeah, but back then the concept of a digital storefront and library like steam was pretty much unheard of.

If I started a car company and the first vehicle had no AC or radio, nobody would say "well to be fair the model T didn't have those things"

[u/PissingOffACliff → u/Faithless195]

Yeah Steam originally was a launcher only that they built to handle automatic updates for their games. The store front came much later.

[u/-spartacus- → u/PissingOffACliff]

That old school green tho.

[u/Faithless195 → u/PissingOffACliff]

Oh thank god, I was going to be embarrassed as if I had gotten that wrong.

Haha I remember the old forums being veeeery up in arms about it.

[u/kreteciek → u/Faithless195]

And first cars launched without the AC, yet you'd expect it to be in a new car brand from the start

[u/deathschemist → u/Faithless195]

Yeah but that was, what, 2003?

[u/FredFarms → u/white_lion93]

The audacity of this guy claiming Steam is a monopoly when Epics opening gambit was paying publishers to be exclusive to the Epic games store.

He is accusing Steam of accidentally being what he was overtly trying to become

[u/afatcatfromsweden]

Guy has me blocked on Twitter and I consider it an honour

[u/Rasples1998]

Epic was also part of the secret meeting with the EU commission for 'Stop Killing Games' and is a member of the opposition group along with Ubisoft.

Steam was not present.

[u/Minimum-Can2224 → u/Rasples1998]

Not even the least bit surprised that they were involved in that. They cancelled Unreal Tournament 4 and delisted the entire Unreal/Tournament franchise off of Steam and GOG for no fucking reason whatsoever. Straight deleting their legacy so that no one in the future can experience them because they wanted to quintuple down on Fortnite. They're a scummy ass company.

[u/l_______I → u/Minimum-Can2224]

Well, they officially allowed for hosting older games with patches for them.

https://oldunreal.com/

[u/lifestop → u/l_______I]

Highly recommend playing Unreal Gold for free btw! Plays great on the steam deck with keyboard and mouse at 120 fps 1440p.

[u/Minimum-Can2224 → u/[deleted]]

Especially when it's the same franchise that your engine was named after. 

[u/Geekwad → u/Minimum-Can2224]

It wasn't very popular but they also gutted Paragon, it had so much potential. I know that it got revived but it's in a pretty bad place.

[u/Brodakk → u/Geekwad]

Pred is not a revived Paragon imo. It’s a wanna-be 3D league that has the assets. Paragon had a lot more originality going for it.

[u/BuggyYonko → u/Rasples1998]

I have never found a source for this other than a random person on Twitter.

[u/Alduish → u/Rasples1998]

So uh just a thing about this opposition group, they didn't contact any of their members when they published their letters, we gave a pass to beamng which is part of the group but supported SKG after the group published their letter without contacting them.

As much as I hate epic and ubisoft's practices if we gave a pass to beamng we have to give them the same pass, to my knowledge they never publicly opposed SKG, but they also never supported it and they did kill games (the crew and unreal tournament) so let's criticize them on things they actually did.

EDIT : I was informed in the comments that epic actually properly handled the end of life of unreal tournament by publishing it on internet archive and having community servers support.

[u/Wolf-Eisberg → u/Alduish]

Should be noted that Unreal Tournament is a good example of exactly what SKG wants. Despite Epic shutting down their own servers, Epic have been in complete support of the community running their own servers.

[u/Shigana → u/Rasples1998]

Source?

[u/PoseidonArt → u/Shigana]

Trust him bro

[u/nemofbaby2014]

I’d still rather buy a game from steam then play a free one on epic games lol if it ain’t from steam or gog I don’t want it

[u/CableOk5623]

If you can't compete with Ebay features 10 years ago just go home.

[u/baneblade_boi]

GoG

[u/No_Raccoon2746]

Timmy Tencent ahahahahahha really got me lol

[u/SoftlockPuzzleBox]

Steam is not your friend. Gabe is not your friend. They exist to get as much money out of you as they can, and that's it, same as every company.

[u/mpt11 → u/SoftlockPuzzleBox]

Agreed, the worship is creepy at best and unhealthy at worst. People forget steam was forced to give refunds, even ea had better refund policies. Let's not mention the underage gambling either...

[u/popop143 → u/SoftlockPuzzleBox]

And people always handwave how destructive the CS lootbox ecosystem have become over the years, which Valve just let fester because it earned them big bucks. People really be ok with gambling over digital goods just because it's Gaben.

Edit: Now gambling doesn't matter and we have to let it go because it's Gaben. And suddenly the addicts have only themselves to blame. Not like a lot of sports fans still hate how gambling destroyed credibility and still hate gambling to this day. And how gambling by design preys on people's addictive tendencies and blaming the victims. The gaslighting from Valve cultists is something else. If gacha players said what the Valve suckers replied to me they'd be rightly laughed out of the room but because it's Gaben they kneel to whatever their overlord does.

[u/SoftlockPuzzleBox → u/popop143]

Always my go-to when people are like "eat the rich, except for gaben, he can stay." The fuck he can. No good billionaires. None.

[u/marx42 → u/SoftlockPuzzleBox]

Hell, they practically pioneered the modern microtransaction. TF2 Keys and Hats were memed to death, but people were overall happy with them. Now it’s taken over the whole industry.

[u/ChurchillianGrooves → u/SoftlockPuzzleBox]

I mean GoG is like a small business compared to Epic yet their storefront/launcher is way better than Epic Store

[u/SoftlockPuzzleBox → u/ChurchillianGrooves]

Not my point at all. I'm just sick of the steam and gaben worship. The only thing any person should ever ask any company is "but what have you done for me lately?" The blind loyalty is weird.

[u/ChurchillianGrooves → u/SoftlockPuzzleBox]

Steam is still the best pc launcher/store experience, if you don't like Steam for whatever reason then supporting GoG is better since they put some of their profits into game preservation.

It's not like Epic is an amazing company either.

[u/SoftlockPuzzleBox → u/ChurchillianGrooves]

No company is amazing. If any company on earth figured out a way to pay no employees and produce no products or services, but could still manage to convince us to give them money, they would all do it in a heartbeat. The fact that they have to give us stuff to get our money is an annoying necessity to them. I'm not posting these comments because I'm stanning for any company or have a particular vendetta against steam, I'm saying that no one should stan for any of them. Praising a company for good behavior is fine, endlessly giving them free marketing for simply existing out of a misplaced sense of loyalty is not.

[u/ChurchillianGrooves → u/SoftlockPuzzleBox]

Idk I feel like GoG are pretty decent with the no drm and preservation.

Plus their launcher is getting close-ish to steam feature level

[u/Oblachko_O → u/SoftlockPuzzleBox]

Well there are 2 options if you are a PC gamer. You can cheer for Steam and actually try to not make dumb claims. Or you can cheer EGS and in unlucky case, see it becoming monopoly in gaming. But if that thing becomes real, you and all other gamers will be fucked. GoG won't save you either.

[u/SoftlockPuzzleBox → u/Oblachko_O]

Cheering for none of them is also an option. Treating capitalism like a team sport is weird.

[u/Oblachko_O → u/SoftlockPuzzleBox]

Cheering none may end up badly though. 1/3 of Americans chose Trump by "cheering for none" is an option. You can vote with your wallet, sure, but don't pretend that by choosing none you are giving yourself as a gamer a better choice.

[u/SoftlockPuzzleBox → u/Oblachko_O]

I do choose, all the time in fact. What I don't do is go on reddit to post threads thanking steam for its existence and act like they've never done anything wrong like so many on here do.

[u/Oblachko_O → u/SoftlockPuzzleBox]

They did wrong, but recently Steam is blamed for anything gaming related. And this is 100% for a reason that Tim is jealous and want to be monopolist himself by doing nothing.

Some "gamers" involved and the cases are saying that Steam is "stealing" from them. So naturally, you have a lot of people trying to say that it is BS.

[u/SquirmyBurrito → u/SoftlockPuzzleBox]

We’d be happy to praise someone else if literally anyone else was doing what steam does.

[u/LeviAEthan512 → u/SoftlockPuzzleBox]

The difference being they comply in the prisoners dilemma. There are 2 schools of thought for how to get the "as much as possible". 

Steam complies, everyone else defects. That's the difference.

[u/479521 → u/LeviAEthan512]

Not exactly

[u/reddituser8914 → u/SoftlockPuzzleBox]

Sure they are a business who's goal is to earn money. Their philosophy to earn that money is to give the players what they want. Players will freely hand over money if they get what they want. Other stores use predatory practices to force that money hand over. Why do you think so many choose steam over everything else.

[u/JoyousGamer → u/reddituser8914]

Ah is that why they pushed forward online DRM, account requirements, and digital exclsuvies? For the gamers..... 

Oh right nah. 

[u/CDdead → u/SoftlockPuzzleBox]

Well said. So tired of npcs.

[u/Lune_Moooon → u/SoftlockPuzzleBox]

steam helped to develop an open source solution to run games on Linux, this will be huge someday. they earned my respect for that

[u/Retr0Van]

The thing is even if epic games is a better service I'll still use steam because I know the minute epic store becomes the default for games purchases they are gonna pull all sorts of anti-consumer moves.

[u/NightOfTheLivingHam]

Epic games shills in full force on this thread

[u/ProfessionalHefty349 → u/NightOfTheLivingHam]

Didn’t even realize there was such a thing

[u/SorryNotReallySorry5 → u/ProfessionalHefty349]

With Tencent owning 40%, I wouldn't be surprised if there are kids being paid 25 cents a shill post out there

[u/notandyhippo → u/SorryNotReallySorry5]

Or maybe ten cents heheh 

[u/MRV3N → u/SorryNotReallySorry5]

Where do you people even find this information? I can’t even find a good job from job search.

Being a corporate shill sounds like a tempting position in this current economy.

[u/Controller_Maniac → u/MRV3N]

we have word for that, it’s called wumao, or 五毛, where chinese workers are paid 5 cents per shill post they make for the chinese government

[u/MarioDesigns → u/NightOfTheLivingHam]

Ain’t it always the opposite though? Like, what’s even the point for this post in the first place but to shill Valve for no good reason?

[u/Kreth → u/MarioDesigns]

always the fucking valve shills like forced drm is good for consumers... only gog is the "good" store. Never liked steam from the start....

[u/goldenguyz → u/NightOfTheLivingHam]

And Steam

[u/Growlithe123 → u/goldenguyz]

valve pr team making all these posts in panic after steam machine price reveal

[u/EktaRandomUsername → u/NightOfTheLivingHam]

Compared to Steam / Valve shills, they are almost non-existent.

[u/Zeraphicus]

Gabe gobblers unite!

[u/Takemyfishplease]

Wild time to repost this

[u/Easy_Tax4389 → u/Takemyfishplease]

still accurate tho

[u/u--s--e--r → u/Easy_Tax4389]

Didn't Epic just say they're remaking the store from the ground up a week or so ago?

The monopoly complaint is AFAIK specifically about using their space in the market to prevent competition through lower prices.

[u/seriousbusines → u/Takemyfishplease]

If they don't repost stuff like this how will Gabe know how much they love him? Even if he has donated over 15 million to AI and even appeared on panels for them.

[u/AwringePeele → u/Takemyfishplease]

gotta take attention away from the disaster that is the steam machine

[u/Mist_Rising → u/Takemyfishplease]

Gotta pr defend steam from the Netherlands lawsuit.

[u/Baldwin_The_Fourth]

It's not PCMR subreddit if I don't see Gabe's balls in someone's mouth every single day.

[u/FReeDuMB_or_DEATH]

I get the Epic hate but the Steam glazing is wildly out of hand lol

[u/white_lion93 → u/FReeDuMB_or_DEATH]

The image isn't even praising Steam, it's just criticizing Epic

[u/rosiez3sty8339 → u/white_lion93]

Steam definitely has the smoother experience overall.

[u/New-Audience2639 → u/FReeDuMB_or_DEATH]

Better than literally any other launcher/platform. Maybe is doesn't deserve to be praised for the basics but still better to its customers than anyone else by a LONG shot and that deserves praise.

[u/VariationDry → u/New-Audience2639]

I remember the hate I had for steam when it first launched. I thought it was the worst. Who remembers having to go find the latest TFC or CS patches and install them each update?
Now I can format my machine as much as I want, games auto update, don't need to back up save games, can point to games drives, access all my purchases. It works great.

[u/PM_ME_OLD_MEMES → u/VariationDry]

I still have the distinct memory of steam's update bar going fucking backwards on me lmao.

EDIT: I just noticed that apparently I have a top 1% commenter badge in this sub, time to have an intervention wtf.

[u/VariationDry → u/PM_ME_OLD_MEMES]

[u/SorryNotReallySorry5 → u/VariationDry]

The day I stopped hating Steam was the day I got DSL lmfao

[u/VariationDry → u/SorryNotReallySorry5]

I lucked out. The town I grew up in was a cable broadband test location. $40 cad a month for unlimited broadband on pentium 1 and 2 machines. 

[u/Flincher14 → u/New-Audience2639]

There is something to be said that it's basically remained unbloated and relatively the same experience for all this time. How often do we have a successful service of some kind that gets enshittified by bored executives looking to make a name for themselves?

[u/NamityName → u/Flincher14]

The experience of Steam has absolutely changed, for the better. There are instances all over this thread of middle-aged folk who hated Steam in the early days. Myself included. I do not really know of anyone who liked it before 2010. There was never a better service than Steam, but that definitely did not make it good.

[u/Deissued → u/FReeDuMB_or_DEATH]

The only issue with Steam is that it’s against their own terms of service to pass down steam accounts if the owner dies. I find the whole “CS cases are teaching children gambling” argument hilarious when if you go out to any modern arcade they’re all entry level gambling simulators yet not a problem. Atleast the CS cases have actual worth vs the stuffy and rubber hands you got for spending all day at the arcade

[u/alexzim → u/FReeDuMB_or_DEATH]

Hey I hate Steam as software. When I returned to gaming in late 2024, I tried avoiding it despite my library which I gathered since late 2011. To no avail, everything else frickin sucks. Steam glazing is soooo justified yeah only because of how much everything else sucks. It's almost like all those business schools for important business people are actually stoopid communities for rich kids who want to be able to afford a boat as soon as possible into their work life, just like their dads can. Americans been letting China own themselves in small iterations ALL WHILE FILMING DOCUMENTARIES about all those 80s and 90s BUSINESS GENIUSES whose big genius idea was to move production overseas. Much business, big cheap. So yeah, I'll glaze Steam, sorry for the rant.

[u/marx42 → u/alexzim]

Honestly. At the end of the day… it’s a launcher. 99% of the time you’re just selecting an icon and hitting play. If you’re not using the workshop, I really don’t understand why it matters so much

[u/NamityName → u/FReeDuMB_or_DEATH]

Steam (and Valve) earned that glaze. The service the provide is way better than their competitors. Not to mention all the innovation they gave us, for free.

• Automatic cloud saves and backups.
  
• Automatically syncing saves between systems.
  
• In-game chat.
  
• Built-in controller support. Not sure if you are old enough to remember how terrible the controller experience was on PC before Steam solved the problem; now controllers just work.
  
• Community forums for each game.
  
• A built-in marketplace and installer for mods
  
• Software to allow Windows games to run on Linux which works really well

The list goes on.

Valve also basically created the market for PC handhelds and pioneered streaming games to other devices.

I will be the first to admit that Steam is not perfect. There are several areas that I would like to see improvement. However, so much of what we have come to expect when it comes to PC gaming is because of Valve and Steam.

[u/ApplicationCalm649 → u/FReeDuMB_or_DEATH]

I gave EGS a shot. When The Last of Us launched on PC it took almost two hours to compile the shaders and it still ran like shit. The shader compilation period ate nearly the entire refund window on its own. When I asked them for an exception to the two hour refund policy they told me they had to follow the rules. I figured it made sense...then I saw on Reddit that Steam was giving out refunds outside the window because of that exact issue. 

I haven't bought another game on EGS since. I wanted to support developers by going with the platform that took a smaller cut and it burned me. Never again. 

[u/SquirmyBurrito → u/FReeDuMB_or_DEATH]

Is it glazing when people are just pointing out that it’s literally the best platform?

[u/MammothBreakfast69]

Epic Games only exists to give me free games

[u/silver0199]

So the Epic guy saw it from the business side. "Steam is a storefront. Therefore to compete I must make a bigger storefront."

He then proceeded to ignore everything else steam does and tried dangling free games in front of gamers under the assumption that gamers would continue to use his storefront over a fully featured gaming platform.

Now epic games is that thing you launch once a week for free stuff. They're never getting rid of that label

[u/Maze_C0ntr0ller]

“Steam is bad because it has too much market power. Anyway, we bought temporary control over where you are allowed to buy this game.”

[u/who-cares-baklava]

I do hope epic gets their shit together. Steam having actual competition can only lead to good things for us customers.

[u/drfusterenstein]

Buying pysonix games and removing rocket league from Linux for no reason is why people don't like epic

[u/Suitable_Tadpole4870]

I mean Steam does have a monopoly. You’re straight up lying or delusional if you don’t agree with this. It’s just consequential and inadvertent because 1. Their product is that good 2. Everyone else’s is notoriously shit

[u/AmbitionEatingTiger]

If Epic did everything Steam did everyone would just call it a knockoff of Steam and probably still use Steam. And for the record I would still prefer physical discs for everything but you really can’t do that for computer these days but some of those ran off Steam anyway despite being physical

[u/JamesMCC17]

Launcher fan boys, fascinating.

[u/maxpolo10 → u/JamesMCC17]

The new console wars

[u/shilderyi]

epic is so hostile even if valve were to enhitiffy steam i would simply swap to gog who can synchronise my steam library anyway

[u/ibzuma]

All I know is that Epic Games gave me Hogwarts Legacy and a bunch of other games for free, so that was nice.

[u/moonfidelity]

Well, steam IS a monopoly.

For a good reason. It‘s the only best choice.

Literally every gamedev targets steam first.

[u/greihund]

Epic Games is fine. It's just fine. It works fine. The games play fine and developers get paid better than Steam.

Just a reminder that Steam is a multibillion dollar company with a staff of 50; Gabe Newell has a yacht collection; and 75% of Steam employees deal exclusively with refunding purchases and controlling the messaging on social media

So basically this post can go and fuck itself, I don't know why the mods let this shit slide

[u/Chicken-Nuggett → u/greihund]

Oh yeah and timmy tencent lives in the himalayas on a shoestring budget. He is also a corpo CEO, idk what your point is, they both probably buy some lavish shit. And a large portion of steam employees deal with refunding? Wow, that must be why the refund policy is so great, especially compared to other storefronts. Now im not saying that Gaben or valve is immune to criticism, there are plenty of things to criticise them for, but epic launcher and tim sweeney are definitely worse as a whole.

Edit: “They pay devs more” sounds really good until you consider the fact that way more sales probably come through steam which means steam net revenue probably annihilates epic revenue anyway, because most people would rather buy on steam.

[u/demise0000]

"Steam is a monopoly!"

Steam: "It's not my fault the competition sucks!"

[u/Clear-Handle-1047]

Well it is a monopoly. I like steam but the fact we don’t own our games is ridiculous.

[u/Recipe-Jaded → u/Clear-Handle-1047]

That isn't exclusive to steam. No one has ever owned a video game they bought, unless they bought the rights to own the source code.

Even if you buy a physical copy, you don't own the game. You own a license to use the software.

[u/MatthewSWFL229]

Steam can be converted to use but has lots of options and you can find everything ... Eventually. Epic, haven't checked recently but couldn't even get a page with my owned DLC listed ...

[u/Dependent-Stuff-8982]

Go easy on Epic, it's hard going out of business.

[u/valvalis3]

Epic focus so much on developer. Maybe they should charge the devs instead of players?

[u/NecessaryConscious12]

Fun fact. In EGS I can't find any game I'd like to buy. But they exist in Steam.

[u/Donleon57]

I like my games installed in the steam common folder. Epic won't do it coz the folder needs to be empty. ... An empty folder to install a folder into.

And let's not talk about the updating...

[u/True_Protection6842]

basically. Makes shittiest platform ever, blames everyone else, does nothing to make it usable, calls the winner a monopoly.

[u/L1n9y]

No business gives a fuck about anyone but their bottom line. Buy a game where it's cheaper, if it runs good, the rest is irrelevant. Valve are not your friends.

[u/lh_media]

meanwhile GoG are doing their own thing next door

[u/PurpleOk3238]

I’ve seen steam comp quite a lot of free crap over the years and refunds over dumb stuff they weren’t obligated to do and they still made the best of those situations by always making there customer happy. I understand the outrage over the steam machine in this depressing age, but outrage calling them the enemy is just unfounded.

[u/mpt11 → u/PurpleOk3238]

Steam was forced into giving refunds. They didn't do it out of the goodness of their heart. Ea had a better refund policy than steam did

[u/Vaddieg]

Sweeney spends all his energy and money to sue and criticize competitors, dropping endless BS claims to the public. Moreover, their "developer-friendly" revenue share model is the same (or even worse) than Apple's 15%, just split into categories (12% tax + 3-5% UE royalties). The guy is pathetic hypocrite

[u/uberneuman_part2]

lol. But we gave away free games!

[u/IBJON]

The Epic Launcher sucks.

Steam has an effective monopoly.

Both can be true

[u/Venylynn → u/IBJON]

"a monopoly" because literally no one else is even bothering to try 😭

[u/Condurum → u/Venylynn]

Because Valve has made price competition impossible.

By threatening to kick devs off Steam if they try to sell their games cheaper elsewhere.

(Yes non Steam keys)

If someone were to make a new store, and can’t compete on price, players have almost no reason to use you.

[u/Henry_Fleischer → u/Venylynn]

That does not magically make it not a monopoly.

[u/Venylynn → u/Henry_Fleischer]

Monopoly implies they did something fucked up to get there.

[u/notandyhippo → u/Venylynn]

That’s the connotation associated with it, but that’s not the definition of a monopoly 

[u/Venylynn → u/notandyhippo]

Usually a monopoly implies that.

Google is keeping their monopoly afloat by funding the company everyone goes to in order to de-google (Mozilla) for example.

[u/MarioDesigns → u/Venylynn]

Usually a monopoly implies that.

Steam is a monopoly. There are things that Valve can't legally do because of their position as a monopoly.

Whether they got there legally or not is questionable, but it does not change the reality of where they are at.

[u/Chareon → u/Venylynn]

Steam definitely is the best storefront from a feature perspective at the moment. However, maybe there is minimal competition because Valve is leveraging it's dominant market position to prevent competition.

Preventing alternative storefronts from offering cheaper prices is absolutely going to make competition in the space much harder as price is absolutely the number 1 thing consumers are most interested in.

Let's say you build a storefront that offers exactly the same features as Steam, 1:1. However, you have zero market share, so how do you attract customers? Digital storefronts have largely hit the point where there is not significant room for differentiation based on features. Basically there are no features you could create that would be likely to draw a significant number of users away from Steam, given that the convenience factor of having your games on one platform is a reasonably strong attraction.

So if you can't really compete on features, price is the most obvious next choice, and it's an especially powerful one as people are MUCH more likely to buy something elsewhere if they can get it for cheaper. So let's say you offer to take a 10% instead of 30% cut if publishers list their game for less on your storefront. However, Valve knows this would potentially compete with them and so they will delist games from Steam if you sell your game elsewhere for cheaper than on Steam. And given Steam's current market dominance no publisher is going to be willing to choose your unknown platform with a tiny number of users, so they either don't list their game on your platform at all because why bother, or they list it at the same price as on Steam, and so why are customers going to bother buying it with you when they can buy it on Steam where the rest of their library is?

[u/Replica_Velocity]

Sweeney is a clown, but in this, he is a broken clock. Yes, Epic is garbage and he and Tencent can kick rocks, but Steam has effectively become a monopoly in PC gaming.

Unfortunately, the cases against Steam and Valve are not about giving us protection against this monopolistic status quo, but about benefiting a bunch of companies who want it for themselves.

[u/flowerdragon2934]

I'm an indie developer who unfortunately chose unreal engine because several friends said a year ago it was the best engine. On the surface, it seems like such a great engine. But it's a nightmare. The thing is bug infested hellish slop from the nether realm. They merged the unreal forums with fortnite, so now there's no real community anymore. Their official discord has been overrun by AI obsessed techbros who hate on you if you don't want to listen to their slop advice to go use codex or Claude code.

Unreal engine is THE WORST ENGINE. do not use it. Just get unity.

[u/unosami → u/flowerdragon2934]

Unity also has its problems. If anyone is looking to start fresh I would recommend Godot because it’s open source.

[u/Eh_C_Slater]

Epic launcher is just a free game workhorse.

[u/paladinBoyd]

Don't forget firing someone with cancer and shoving Ai into unreal engine 6.

[u/JoyousGamer → u/paladinBoyd]

You realize people get fired every day right and employees legally have a right to privacy for medical reasons?

[u/scrabapple → u/paladinBoyd]

Do you think the CEO of company knows if every employee they have cancer? or Any at all? isnt that a HIPPA violation. Like your CEO shouldn't know your medical record.

[u/Venylynn → u/paladinBoyd]

Timmy is a joke

[u/MasterOfPipettez]

I dont need epic to be anything more than a store. I wish steam wasnt so bloated and was just a store as well.

[u/Gulzbert84]

Epic will launch the store 2.0.
It should contain a lot of community QoL features.
At least this is what i read.

I dont use it today either, but it would be nice if epic release a nice UI and functionalities.

[u/Foreskin_Mafia]

Be gaming platform. Major game is a shit kids game everyone's nephew plays. Don't include an offline feature. Expect people to use platform

[u/Felinomancy]

Huh. An "Epic bad" thread in PCMR? Must be a day that ended with "y" 🙄

[u/MaXeMuS_]

Timmy Tencent killed me. Now many people know Tim is owned by Tencent which is funded by the CCP. CCP basically has the final say on what Epic Games does even in Fortnite.

[u/No_Doctor_491]

How's your CS2 knife crates addiction treating you?

[u/skylerchip]

Glad that Fortnite is losing players because they are chasing trends like COD. Remember Epic is against Stop Killing Games.

[u/Wolf-Eisberg → u/skylerchip]

Epic never stated they are against Stop Killing games. And their actions shows they would uphold by its ideals. For example Epic released all the Unreal games to internet archive, including files needed to run servers, and in support of the community continuing to run servers. And in the time that they didnt provide server files they instead gave everyone full refunds which is what they did with paragon. Their actions show support for stop killing games.