254
this post was submitted on 23 Aug 2024
254 points (97.4% liked)
Games
32539 readers
2605 users here now
Welcome to the largest gaming community on Lemmy! Discussion for all kinds of games. Video games, tabletop games, card games etc.
Weekly Threads:
Rules:
-
Submissions have to be related to games
-
No bigotry or harassment, be civil
-
No excessive self-promotion
-
Stay on-topic; no memes, funny videos, giveaways, reposts, or low-effort posts
-
Mark Spoilers and NSFW
-
No linking to piracy
More information about the community rules can be found here.
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
It's not. EGS doesn't solve any problems that Steam leaves on the table to be solved. Customers have no reason to shop at EGS when Epic takes its thumb off the scale.
If anything, the only thing that other stores have that Steam doesn't would be games not on Steam. Even then, half of the time, they're either itch(dot)io exclusive indie titles or shitty triple AAA titles.
When I buy on GOG, I know I'm getting a game DRM-free. They muddied that a tad with how they handle online multiplayer, but for the most part, I get more value from their store for that. It's a huge reason why I'd choose their store, because they're solving a problem for me that Steam does not.
While I normally check both locations and buy from GOG if it's available there, you would be surprised how many Steam titles are completely DRM free.
I needed some DRM free games for the classroom last year and was pleasantly surprised that a lot of the smaller, indie games I own Steam, the ones I was most interested in bringing into the classroom to begin with, run perfectly well on a machine without Steam even installed just by copying the folder to a flash drive. Some required deleting a Steam.dll or adding a text document that states the SteamID of the game, but most of the games I wanted I was able to run from a flash drive, DRM free, no Internet, Steam or game install required.
Steam offers DRM to devs that want it, but it is not a DRM platform in of itself.
I'm aware, but when GOG takes the ambiguity out of it, I don't have to do tons of extra research to know that they have an extra feature that's important to me. I'd really appreciate if some store took the ambiguity out of it when it comes to multiplayer games being playable offline. It's something that Steam should easily tell you in theory, but there are tons of games that have LAN and such without bothering to report it. Some say they require an online connection and actually don't. These are problems worth solving for me, a particular kind of consumer.