I can’t seem to find that one comment explaining the issue with them…
But for the sake of promoting conversation on Lemmy, what’s the issue with Epic, and why should I go for Steam or GoG?
Note: Piracy is not an answer. I understand why, and do agree to a certain extent… But sometimes, the happiness gained by playing something from a legitimate source is far greater 🥹… coming from someone who could never ever afford to purchase games, nor could my parents… Hence I’ve always played bootleg, or pirated games.
TL;DR
What’s wrong?
- Their launcher has a terrible UI AND UX.
- They make exclusive deals with studios to prevent other platforms from getting games. (Someone mentioned that Steam did the same thing in their infancy. Also, I have another question; why is it ok for Sony and Microsoft to make exclusive games for their consoles but not ok for these PC platforms to do so?)
- They have been invested in by a Chinese company, Tencent. (Someone mentioned that it isn’t that big of a deal, but idk.)
- They are actively anti-linux for some reason.
This. Steam also offers reviews, achievements, workshop, communities, groups, streaming, etc, etc
Epic doesn’t have to be as good as Steam; it has to be better than Steam. People don’t up and leave platforms they like for new platforms for no reason. Epic can take a smaller cut on games but if that doesn’t carry to the end user why should I care.
At this point, I don’t know if Epic can get better than Steam in the ways that matter simply because they are clearly trying very hard to gain a dominant market position in ways that make it seem like they would abuse such a position, while Valve has had that dominant position for decades without abusing it. Valve is one of the few companies I trust these days. That trust is Valve’s to lose, not any other competitor’s to gain, though I am open to other adjacent providers (like I’ve got an xbox game pass sub, a ps5, and switch).
So much this!