• Deceptichum@sh.itjust.works
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    8 months ago

    If Epic could actually provide a better service, they would be seeing customers and developers actually want to use their platform.

    Instead they try to lock games behind exclusivity deals and bribe customers with free games and they still fail.

    So what do they do instead of fixing their own problems? They go after everyone else who’s actually successful.

    • The Picard Maneuver@lemmy.world
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      8 months ago

      I’d love it if they had a comparable service, because competition is good for the consumer, but they just don’t.

      Steam has had a relative monopoly for two decades, and we’re lucky they’ve been customer friendly. But if something were to happen to Gabe, or Valve decided to go public or something, we’re screwed.

      • Deceptichum@sh.itjust.works
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        8 months ago

        The fact that everyone else is shit isn’t Valves problem, it’s theirs.

        And we are fucked when something eventually changes with Valve, but we’d have been fucked this whole time without them.

        • dindonmasker@sh.itjust.works
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          8 months ago

          There will be a time where Gabe will no longer be there. Hopefully someone as good as him is ready to fight the good fight.

          I wonder if Gabe would go as far as doing a Halliday move like in ready player one.

          I feel like that’s a bad idea cause it’s gonna be a sweaty cheater that would crack the thing and fuck everyone up.

    • hannes3120@feddit.de
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      8 months ago

      If Epic could actually provide a better service, they would be seeing customers and developers actually want to use their platform.

      Doubt

      Gog is objectively giving you more value for your money but even cdpr had to release the Gwent standalone on steam eventually because people didn’t buy it enough - once it was on steam it sold more than in a year on gog in weeks

      People don’t look at the alternatives at all - unless it’s a AAA game with an exclusive deal

      • Domi@lemmy.secnd.me
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        8 months ago

        Gog is objectively giving you more value for your money

        What value do they give you exactly?

        The games are mostly priced the same, they don’t have integrated modding support, no input remapping, no remote play, no in-home streaming, no steamcmd for server operators, no VR client, no Linux client and no Steam Deck support.

        The only thing they do give you is no DRM, but nothing stops a developer from adding a DRM-free game on Steam.

        • tan00k@lemmy.world
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          8 months ago

          I really like steam for its friends network and local streaming, but these are the reasons I occasionally buy on gog:

          Games that my wife likes to play so that they don’t tie up my steam account. I still find it weird that ALL games in steam get locked down when one is running. I understand it keeping the same game from being run more than once simultaneously, but more than that is unnecessary.

          I also buy games on gog (when available) that I mod a lot, because it’s really easy to stop updates on gog (updates often break mods).

          • CarbonatedPastaSauce@lemmy.world
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            8 months ago

            She can play your steam games in offline mode without affecting your online activity. As long as the game developer/publisher allows offline use.

            Obviously doesn’t solve all your problems but figured I’d mention it if it gives you more flexibility.

            • tan00k@lemmy.world
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              8 months ago

              I do know about that, but I want it to be as easy as clicking on a game to play it without worrying about toggling the mode. I know I could make a separate account for her too, but we share machines and again that becomes a barrier when wanting to just click a game to play it.

              In this niche case, gog is just plain better.

          • fruitycoder@sh.itjust.works
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            8 months ago

            You also can share games with family mode with steam. So even online my SO and I can play games from either of our accounts.

            • tan00k@lemmy.world
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              8 months ago

              That is a cool feature, and I do use it though in a different way. I made an alt account that I buy vr games on so that I can share them with friends. That way if a friend is playing one of my vr games through family share, it won’t lock up all the games in my main account.

              In the example you’re talking about, say your SO is playing a game shared from your account - it locks up all the games in both accounts! Pretty annoying if you want to play a game, now.

              But if it’s a gog game, there’s no issue at all.

        • VSDreams@yiffit.net
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          8 months ago

          Steam is DRM. Note the warnings all mention third-party drm. Eventually your login to steam expires and you can’t play your games, and steam can revoke games and your access to them at any point for any reason.

          Steam is good, but let’s not imply it’s providing a DRM free experience.

        • squid_slime@lemmy.world
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          8 months ago

          all of the things you have listed are things we as individuals can and have implemented without steam, theyre pretty good like adding code to wine and pushing linux to the larger audience and i myself have been on steam for 11 years with 320 games, but integrated modding? i mean we had mod managers before steams implementation.

          game streaming we have moonlite and shunshine > for amd hosts, and theres more.

          input remapping can be done through standalone applications i use sc-controller for remapping my steam controller.

          id say steams vr client is more of a negative than a positive, leads to segmentation and issues with device support when we should of focused on a wide approach to vr. like what google did with android, funded a free and open eco-system>(less so now)

          steam sells accessibility and DRM, personally i see this as a bad thing. force people to become dependent. and while gog isnt natively on linux there are work around like downloading from gog.com or installing heroic games launcher.

          • Domi@lemmy.secnd.me
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            8 months ago

            steam sells accessibility and DRM, personally i see this as a bad thing.

            So we can agree that GOG does not objectively give you more value for your money as OP implied.

            • squid_slime@lemmy.world
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              8 months ago

              Value is personal, I for one want a game, I dont want a bloated web browser that only connects through steam, which is what the steam client is. All the thing I need steam to do I can do and I can do it in a more agnostic way and less bloated. I use wayland therefore steam does not run without xwayland support enabled and even when enabled I can’t stream my desktop over steam remote.

              • Can’t use remote play and have an open source implementation that has fine tuning controls.
              • Installing mods through third party tools or manually is easy enough and allows for multiple distributors.
              • Dont use vr and even so its a closed ecosystem.
              • More than happy to visit steam in my own browser to buy and download games if that was possible.
              • Dont care for skins, cards, or any of the inventory system.
              • I talk to friends through open source solutions.

              If you do however want a streaming, mod manager, vr, forum, store front, download manager, DRM and much more in one bloated application then yes the value proposition is there.

              I highly value diy solutions in software, you on the other hand may not. And this is fine. GOG offers more to me than to you as steam offers less for me than for you.

              • Zeroxxx@lemmy.id
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                8 months ago

                That is your opinion. Steam is growing and it satisfies millions people. Just not your style does not mean it is bad.

    • TheSambassador@lemmy.world
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      8 months ago

      Epic building a launcher that has equivalent features to Steam would do nothing. Everyone wants all their games in one place, and everyone already has their friends list there.

      Getting exclusives and giving away games is probably the only way they could even enter the market. Yeah the launcher kinda sucks, but Valve has decades of development that they’ve poured into Steam, it isn’t simple to just copy everything. There was a time that Steam sucked.

      Steam is a de-facto monopoly. They luckily don’t really do anti competitive practices, they just focus on having a great product, and that’s why people (myself included) love them. But I don’t think another company can ever really enter the PC market without a few tricks like exclusives or free games.