this post was submitted on 16 Jun 2024
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Many won't like it, but this is the reason we need competition like Epic games and GOG.
The steam fanboys certainly aren't going to make this problem any better.
We need competition like GOG. EGS is shit, we need competition better than EGS.
Bad competition is still better than no competition, because of the aforementioned issue.
Yeah, but fair competition? EGS paying publishers to have exclusives doesn't seem like fair competition to me.
For sure! There is no real market with exclusives! EGS is the bad apple that may spoil the bunch. Now do steam services also create a pseudo exclusive, yes kinda. But developers do not have to use those, they are just making their life easier. And developers can still do their games on other platforms as well.
EGS can't compete on features for sure (it really is quite a shit platform), but they would be very competitive if their 12% fee (vs. Steams 30% fee) could be passed to buyers as lower prices. As it stands, Valve's policies essentially strongarms the market to prohibit this (publishers selling on Steam may not have a lower price on a different platform, or the game can be de-listed from Steam). The Wolfire v. Valve case is highly relevent here.
My plea is for you not to get mad at Epic for being shit. We should be accepting of crappy platforms if their fees reflect that (Epic charges 40% what Steam does). Focus your frustration at Valve for preventing the market from fairly allowing you select the quality of the platform you'd like to pay for.
Yeah, how dare we compare steam to poor little epic?
I'd be a lot more willing to root for epic if they had spent any time at all making EGS preferable. I would prefer steam over their mess even if EGS was 20% cheaper all the time. Tho I go for GOG over either of them whenever possible.
I like Steam and I think GOG is great too
Humble bundle also has a store now fwiw
Cool, I used to buy from them all the time!
Competition like gog, I'm all for it. But what is epic providing? I fail to see it.
Their own host of anti-competitive practices.