It was never about any of that. It's that Valve is a trustworthy company so far and epic is not. The only way at this point I would buy from epic store is if they offered DRM free copies.
I'm sure it's about that for some people, but yeah if they ever actually get significant market share they will enshittify so fast it'll make your head spin. The only thing that has changed is they've decided they need to make a bare minimum experience instead of just throwing money around.
That's why I said DRM free, because I don't trust them, so I would only buy something if I could take it and use it away from their store forever.
Replace 'buy' with 'download for free' and 'launcher' with 'unnecessary software after the download completes', and they might get my attention.
I wasn't swayed by their 'free' games that require their software. I wasn't swayed when they bought up exclusivity contracts (yarr!). I'm sure as fuck not going to be swayed by the software having the absolute bare-minimum feature set.
Even if they offer DRM free copies, I’d use GoG first. The Epic Game Store just doesn’t have the feature parity with GoG or Steam stores.
They definitely lost sales because of how horrible the user experience was/is, too.
Remember how the store launched without a fucking shopping cart so you had to buy each game as a separate transaction? Pepperidge Farms remembers that Epic isn't even capable of the most basic of features required for an online store.
Of course, they'll never get a cent out of me after they pulled that scumbag move of putting games on sale without ever asking the devs - they put games that hadn't even released at like 50% off!
Fuck Tim. He's the reverse-GabeN. NebaG ? 🤣
And Linux support right?
Right?
If anything this will likely break support with Lutris, Heroic, and others so they can force you to run their client.
Maybe support for Linux is part of the new redesign. I mean they want to or already have hired someone to champion Linux Anti-cheat support, directly by Epic. Maybe there is hope.
Steam: Good featureset, good Linux support, large library, probably going to be around in 10 years.
GOG: Offline installers, some explicitly DRM-free stuff, much easier to avoid unwanted updates of games, no need for a launcher.
Matrix: Specialized niche wargaming stuff, some physical media, can avoid unwanted updates, no need for a launcher.
What does Epic bring to the table?
Every additional store I deal with brings some hassle, and especially for online stuff, if it goes away, so do my games.
If it brought a big picture mode with controller navigation that wasn't irretrievably broken, that would be an improvement.
Steam's website design generally is so bad, and when you then add big-picture and controller it's "I can't believe it's not a teenager's first web project" bad.
Steam has a lot going for it, but don't pretend it's perfect.
Oh man, their website...
Its so slow and not interactive. Every click is a full page reload...
What is this, 2007?
They already lost me when they told me I couldn't play a downloaded game without an internet connection. DRM free is the only way.
Took 7 years to have reviews? I dont fucking get it, like at all.
Because they knew they'll get bombarded with people shitting on the epic version and recommending the steam version over and over.
It’s claiming to be 6 times faster, and then it’ll turn out to be an Electron app.
Don’t get me wrong, I hope otherwise…
- I lose access to the email I've had since 1997.
I try to reset my login credentials. The website is caught in a loop. I open a tech support issue explaining that I just need to change my email.
I get sent an automated reply being told email changes use the automated system......the one caught in the loop.
I post a reply to my ticket saying I can't use the automated system. It's stuck in a loop.
I get sent an automated reply being told to use the automated system.
I search google for an 800 number. I find there is no 800 number.
2026 I still haven't changed my email address. I also haven't bought a single game. I claim the free ones, snd I can still log in for now. But I just know eventually it'll say something like "For security purposes we've emailed you a code" snd that email will go to my lost email address. And I will have lost the whole account. So I'm not spending money on games I could lose next week.
So Epic, you want sales? Step 1, let me change my login email.
Step 2......well, you're still fucked. Steam is a juggernaut in their space.
But at least you gained 1 potential customer. Though lets be real.this 3 year wait has left a pretty bad taste im my mouth. I'm not sure if regaining my account would prompt me to buy from a company making me wait this long.
If it exists on GOG or Steam, I can't imagine wanting it on Epic.
They didn't get people into their store by literally giving up free games.
They are not getting people in with q UI redesign.
I have never understood why Epic did not make a decent store. They can absolutely compete if they actually tried. They have close to zero things going for them in terms of user experience or price. Quite the opposite.
A lot if people, myself included mainly care about price and drm. So Steam is not something I care about, just price or GOG.
Epic has a negative UX in terms of their store. GreenManGaming, Fanatical etc, has vastly better stores. Why is Epic wasting enormous amounts of money on giveaways, when most people see no reason to buy from them?? I prefer not using their store, not because Steam is better, but because Epic truly sucks.
A lot if people, myself included mainly care about price and drm. So Steam is not something I care about, just price or GOG.
I'm with you. Although if the game is only on Windows, I'd rather be on Steam to make the Linux compatibility automagic.
Will this be like the v1 roadmap where they continuously delayed many features until they gave up and privated the entire Trello board?
But now they have AI to do all the hard implementation work! Choo choo, here comes the slop train!!
LOL After all this time, now they decide to finally compete?! Tom Sweeney is a creep and a weirdo, I'm never going to buy anything from the platform. As a Linux gamer, I don't have a strong interest in Epic at all. I deleted my Epic Games account about nearly two years ago because their service was garbage and I prefer to use Heroic Games Launcher to connect to GOG.
If what they claim is true then they're actually doing a good job. It's just that even with the significant advancements... I don't trust them. They should be working on their PR as well. More lawsuits in favor of consumers like the Apple lawsuit they had would help move people over.
I've been rapidly barrelling toward a DRM-free-only self-hosted future, and part of that is DRM-free books. In an attempt to get out of Amazon's clutches, I looked for where I can buy DRM-free books, like Project Hail Mary. The answer I came up with was: nowhere. Everyone is following the same playbook. Why would I buy from your store if you're doing exactly what Amazon is doing? I'm already shopping on Amazon, and I want something better.
(The answer is that I can break the DRM on other stores, but I can't on Amazon. When it's this difficult to get DRM-free books, I wouldn't blame people for resorting to piracy.)
Why on earth would I buy from Epic if I have any other option? What are you doing better?
Yeah, GOG is at least offering DRM-free games. That gives them one big plus over Steam and is why I maintain a library on both.
On the other hand, I can't name a single thing Epic does better than Steam and GOG.
I actually don't care in the slightest about play profiles, reviews, etc. Most of Steam is just useless bloat to me. The problem with Epic is how damn laggy it is.
Aren't user reviews one of the things that were on their original roadmap back when they first launched egs?
Needs more invasive AI features
Cool but can they make it so when I buy the game, it's in my steam library? No? Not interested.
Once fortnite money dries up they will close up the store and you will lose all your games.
Pass.
I hope it doesn‘t break Heroic launcher somehow.
All are expected to debut in the next 12 months.
Wouldn't want to rush these things. Absolute clowns lol.
Honestly could not think of a single thing that they could do to get me to download the launcher. None of those features make it steam, and never will
I say let them try. If they actually innovate, we can only win. I'll believe it when I see it, but currently steam has a monopoly by virtue, and we know how that ended for Intel, noVideo, Microslop, goggle and pretty much every other monopoly. It's just GabeN holding the line before enshittification takes hold, and they're already very active against European ownership laws.
Classic case of too little, too late.
Get fucked Epic. Get epically fucked.
Dear Tim. Give up already.
I'm not even touching the storefront of AI and NFT shilling that Epic games aspires to be. Sweeney can fuck himself
"Promise"?
Imagine what the epic store would look like if instead of spending all that time and money suing stream, they used it on their launcher
For as much as people like Steam, their storefront and app is a pile of simultaneously over and under engineered shit.
So I don’t think this will really accomplish much for Epic.
DRM platforms are DRM platforms. Epic, Steam, Uplay and what not - at least I don't care.
I wish Steam would remove all DRM. The big companies would not dare to oppose them with Steam's near 100 percent PC market share.
To be fair to Steam, the DRM is optional for developers. You can pressure those developers not to use it. That being said, Steam could have a DRM tag so you could filter out the DRM games.
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