this post was submitted on 26 Jun 2024
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Basically nvidia shadowplay for linux

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[–] [email protected] 18 points 5 months ago (3 children)

But how does the EGS exist?

Because they are able to subsidize it with investor as well as Fortnite money. I doubt it's turned a profit for them.

Wouldn't exactly call that "viable competition"

[–] [email protected] 26 points 5 months ago (2 children)

That's the thing that gets me. Undercutting is the quintessential anticompetitive practice, and it's Epic's entire business model. They give away games for free because they are trying to siphon some of Steam's customers. They make exclusive release deals with publishers because they want to force people to use their platform. They are trying to compete with Steam using their resources from the success of Fortnite and Unreal rather than compete with the storefront by actually having a better storefront.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 5 months ago (2 children)

One of the problems Epic has is that it is only a store front. Steam is a fully featured platform.

Epic, in their lawsuit, wants to break Steam's store and platform into separate applications, so they can compete.

Sort of like how people want to have different app stores on their iphones.

Difference is: Steam has no restrictions in the first place. You can add non-Steam games to the client if you want. You can use Proton if you want.

Steam offers all of these features for free. What is the point in breaking them apart.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 5 months ago

Most important difference: Steam isn't the only way to install apps. Even on Steam Deck.

[–] [email protected] -2 points 5 months ago (1 children)

That’s what all users want

You can add non-Steam games to the client if you want.

Oh so it’s not a store, it’s just a launcher like Heroic…wait no, it’s still a problem

Any client should be able to implement part of steam into it and any part of steam should be a standalone company

[–] [email protected] 0 points 5 months ago (1 children)

So let me get this straight. Any client that wanted to have steam features, like the forum, hosting, workshop, chat, and all the jazz, should be able to do so without paying steam any fee? Why didn't they develop it themselves? Or should steam sell that as a service to those who wanted it? Say for example, epic wanted to have family sharing. Steam should sell their family sharing feature to epic as a service?

[–] [email protected] -1 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Yes, though each of those should be their own company so if steam wants forums they should be able to put someone’s website in their launcher, if they want people to buy games then they should be able to embed someone’s store in their launcher…etc

[–] [email protected] 0 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Uhhh, no. I think it is better to implement something akin to federation than breaking up a company just because. If anyone wanted to sue valve, then they can enforce interoperability at the very least. But not dividing their business model. We don't force apple to split their software and hardware did we? We force apple to have a choice of interoperability. From then, it is all fair since anyone can link their data from valve and any other store that opt to implement the interoperability protocol.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 5 months ago

Federation is bad in all use cases

Also unix philosophy

[–] [email protected] 2 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (1 children)

Are they succeeding? I have no idea of the actual figures and the Internet tends to form echo chambers, so I don't know if the sentiments I read that they're still not much of a threat are actually representative.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Based on the fact that I've literally never heard anybody actually like the epic games store, I don't think they're successful

[–] [email protected] 2 points 5 months ago (1 children)

That would be rather pathetic then, to resort to anticompetitive practices and still not prevail.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 5 months ago

I mean, yeah, it is pretty pathetic

[–] [email protected] 15 points 5 months ago

That's easy to explain. EGS managed to make everyone hate them just as it started. How do they expect to be profitable if they piss off the entire market?

There are other stores such as GoG that have actual users.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

EGS is the Fortnite launcher. Fortnite's player base is insanely huge. Those people have EGS installed, they just choose not to buy anything else on that platform, except maybe V Bucks.

PS: The installed base of the Microsoft Store and Xbox apps are even bigger because Microsoft is allowed to bundle those with Windows.