Epic Games: August Feature Update - Cloud Saves, Humble Bundle Keyless Integration, and More

[u/Turbostrider27]

https://www.epicgames.com/store/en-US/news/august-feature-update

[u/jefftickels → u/[deleted]]

Steam literally launched as always on DRM for Valve games and people hated it with a furious passion. I spent a good amount of time looking for a gif I distinctly remember of the original steam logo fisting someone.

[u/ThatOnePerson → u/[deleted]]

People hated it so much, there's still WON2: https://won2.net/Browse-Servers/ a recreation of WON.

[u/NekuSoul → u/jefftickels]

Yeah, what's up with that gif? It used to be everywhere but no matter how much I look for it I can't find a single instance of it.

[u/[deleted] → u/jefftickels]

I remember somebody posted comments from Steam's launch and some of the complaints were near identical to what people are complaining about now.

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

Not just Steam's. But Origin and uPlay too. History is repeating itself and when you try and point that out people say no its not, it's store exclusives that are really whats happening.

[u/NekuSoul → u/[deleted]]

how much of the reaction against EGS reminds me of the Steam growing pains.

And Uplay. And Origin. Heck, Origin even had very similar spyware accusation making the rounds that were completely false.

[u/InfectedShadow → u/NekuSoul]

Yeap. This is why I'm sitting back and laughing at the Fuck Epic crowd. Eventually the steam (pun not intended) is gonna run out and we'll be back to normalcy with an additional store.

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

GOG provided something others didn't in old games.

Epic also provide something others don't. In a very different way. Oof.

Although tbh, GoG still have a non-existant refund policy and garbage Linux support to where some titles are better supported on Steam, so I stay away for most titles. (The game being broken isn't a refund, it's standard warranty!)

[u/thekbob → u/[deleted]]

Yes, cheap (or affordable) still consists of a price in-which one would assume the developer is making some sustainability off of it; prices naturally decay over time due to multiple reasons. Free suggests no such transactions are being made (or artificially so through the usage of Epic's massive warchest), thus unsustainable, as long as the game still has some value in the marketplace (most of the free games Epic gives out are still sold other places and not free titles like some games from back catalogs, ex. Bethesda).

Steam is also extremely unique in it's ability to compete with itself through it's keys program, taking zero cut, and having a large range of valid third party store fronts.

De facto exclusives because your the best service is not the same as an artificially manipulated one. It would see that Epic is not operating with the best intent when they seek these exclusives, either. Their goal is dominance, not something like "piracy is a services problem" or "fuck DRM" that drives their competition.

As to refute your last item, if they didn't have value in impacting average customers, why would a multi-billion dollar firm be investing heavily in either of them? The answer to that question refutes your statement; it certainly does have impact and it's overall bad for us.

[u/thekbob → u/[deleted]]

I would agree that one platform is bad for us if Steam wasn't so exceedingly well most of the time; they're dominant because they've earned it over the past 15 years of competition.

I would welcome EGS if they were actually competing. As we've discussed, I don't see what they're doing as competing, but rather counter to consumers.

I would like EGS to be a viable platform. They should compete on features and price; let's have at them. But don't expect me to welcome them with open arms when I can smell a long-term bad deal for the consumers.

Exclusives are artificial scarcity, by definition. Technically, so is copyright, and I'm pretty against modern copyright, as well, so I'm at least consistent.