Fuck Epic Games.
Fuck Apple too, but especially fuck Epic.
Not a fan of epic? Why’s that?
Basically, it boils down to them trying to “compete” with steam by either bribing devs to release exclusively on their store, or straight up buying devs and not releasing (or removing) games on steam. It’s a shitty way to do business, and I won’t encourage it by patronizing them.
GoG and Humble don’t have to resort to that kind of BS. Hell, even Microsoft and Sony are opening up more to each other and PC (often via steam, though Microsoft also uses their own store).
Epic is running in the wrong direction, and it’s not-at-all for the high-ideal BS they spout about Steam being a monopoly (especially since it isn’t, not by a long shot). It’s naked self-interest, and it disgusts me.
(especially since it isn’t, not by a long shot)
It kinda is, though. Their competitors do not matter. Not even when funded by jumbo swinging dicks like Epic.
If you’re talking about “I want to buy a PC game on the internet”, there are tons of competitors (ignoring stores that only service one platform or only first party IPs); Microsoft, Humble, GoG, Amazon, Itch, and (technically, yes) Epic.
If you’re talking about a service that offers the social aspects, storage (saves, etc), support, DRM, and hardware/software development (VR, handheld, OS, controller), there isn’t any competition, but it’s not because they bought everyone. They just develop a ton of things in house, and make an effort to continue to improvel and offer the best experience.
All Epic does is buy developers, hold games hostage, and offer constant freebies in hopes that they’ll get enough of a marketshare to take the same cut that valve (and everyone else) does. They’re losing boatloads of cash, and it’s pretty much just Fortnight proping everything up. Their not mattering is entirely because they just aren’t as good. If they really want to have a chance of competing, they need to stop slinging shit at valve in the news, hilariously complaining that Steam is somehow anti-competitive while they themselves do anti-consumer shit like buy dev studios and block access to games.
‘Competitors exist’ is not a counterargument for ‘their competitors do not matter.’ In fact, if you look carefully, you’ll find acknowledgement of their competitors’ existence, in the sentence: ‘their competitors do not matter.’
Feature parity don’t matter if customers basically just use one store. It does not matter what their competitors are doing - it plainly is not working. Those competitors can develop a ton of games, and exclusively offer some big-name third-party titles, and give away all kinds of freebies, and those competitors still do not matter.
If you think any of this is a defense of Epic then you are mistaken.
Feature parity don’t matter if customers basically just use one store.
People would use more than one store if the other stores had the same or better features.
It does not matter what their competitors are doing - it plainly is not working.
The only thing their competitors have done is exist and provide the worst fucking service possible while using anti-competitive tactics to try and get customers. The stupid fucks can’t even attract customers using anti-competitive practices because they just outright refuse to do what customers actually fucking want and then complain it.
Neat.
Meanwhile:
Whatever the underlying reasons,
customers basically just use one store.
Which is what a monopoly is.
Their competitors don’t matter because they provide trash products.
GoG and Itch are full of great games. They just do fuck-all business, relative to Steam.
Epic carries some huge titles like Alan Wake II, and gives away a ton of celebrated games. It does not help.
Games aren’t the difference. GOG and Itch are terrible to use. Straight up dumpster fires. That is why no one buys games from them. It’s not complicated.
Epic manages to be an even bigger dumpster fire, who also went out of their way to take away games that had already been advertised, and in a few cases, actually sold for Steam. People actively hate them because they went out of their way to piss in the face of gamers, and also, again, because their platform is dogshit.
Steam’s market share is the best because their platform blows doors off of everything else. You will not make a dent until you actually provide a platform that provides actual function that’s competitive in any way with Steam. Market dominant companies fail all the time, when something better comes along. The competition is shit that’s much, much, much worse.
Okay.
That’s why Steam has a monopoly.
Steam still has a monopoly.
It’s not the games that makes it better or worse. It’s literally everything else that Steam’s competition refuses to do better at. No one else offers even a fraction of what Steam has. No friends, no community, no sales, no support, no nothing except the most basic-ass online storefront.
GOG at least had a gimmick of providing old games along with patches to make them run on modern systems; but they’re no longer the only one doing that.
I would like for people to stop explaining why their competitors do not matter, as if that’s a counterargument to the claim ‘their competitors do not matter.’
Fuck epic for ruining rocket league
And the Unreal franchise.
Very Apple of them. As if they were the first.
Apple is horrible to work with as a dev. Some friends and I released an indie mobile game a while back and the approval process was full of such petty stuff that we had to explain to them why it was fine again and again. They suck.
For bonus points, you’ll have to re-explain some of those things randomly to publish updates, which they now require about every 2 years or less or your game just disappears.
