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.

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[–] Krudler@lemmy.world 39 points 11 months ago (1 children)

For me it's entirely self-centered and I'm dispensing with all the aspirational and political feelings that people have about the way businesses operate.

Quite simply I recommend Steam because it is a product with so many killer features, it's really hard to take anybody else seriously.

It's just shy of 2024, and Epic is still a non-realized alpha product. Their website, store, and launcher/library is a perfunctory effort at best. The most recent feature they added that I even consider to be an improvement would be the ability to look at my own games library - that should sound like a pretty funny joke but it's said deadpan. They don't even have proper controller support for PC, whereas Steam for example recognizes that PC gamers come with a variety of input hardware.

I mean it's so simply that steam is such a mature product that offers so much to the gamer, and epic just wants money and they're not really doing anything to compel me to want to use that platform.

GOG is great, it's a simple system that gives you the power to own your own games and I very much appreciate that. Personally I don't like to splinter my collection across different services so I'm mostly avoid them but I can't say anything really negative.

Anyways this is just my opinion, I feel like steam has tons of killer features, the otherS simply don't. There's lots of valid discussion in other areas about ethics and things like that but really I'm just looking at it from the perspective of what do I want from my money. Steam gives me the most, and the others don't even hold a candle.

[–] BaardFigur@lemmy.world 5 points 11 months ago (3 children)

I have one major point against Steam. They sort of require you to play their games through their own platform, when you purchase through their platform, basically locks you in. What if Steam went bankrupt, or start playing less nice?

[–] pivot_root@lemmy.world 16 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (3 children)

The whole idea of digital licenses are stupid and risky. If you can find it on GOG, it's preferable to get it there. The games are DRM-free, and you can directly download the installers and make an offline backup of them.

What if Steam went bankrupt, or start playing less nice?

Thankfully, there's not too much reason to worry about this yet. Steam is a money-printing machine, and it's not a public company or beholden to investors who demand increasing profitability every quarter. As long as Gabe Newell is still alive and doesn't sell out by taking Valve public, things probably won't change much.

[–] Krudler@lemmy.world 8 points 11 months ago

This is where I'm often torn. My sentiments lean fully to the principle of the user owning his/her purchased software.

But I want Valve to have my money and I trust them, because their entire business model is giving me the power to play my games in the most ways possible, and in ways that having the OG installer on my Desktop can't do.

I can stream my entire 900 game Steam library to my phone and when my Deck gets here I'll have access to it all there as well. Muahahaha. Take my money. No GOG RAR Installer is going to give me that, ever. This doesn't seem to get talked about enough. Valve adds so much value, they make it so I don't even want to pirate.

[–] ObsidianZed@lemmy.world 3 points 11 months ago

It's important to note that just because you got it on GOG does not guarantee it is DRM free but they do try. (Unless things have changed since I last looked)

[–] cottonmon@lemmy.world 1 points 11 months ago

They also supposedly have a plan where everyone will still have access to their games in the unlikely event that Valve shuts down.