I get that Steam is where everything and everyone is at. And that the user experience and functionality is best there BUT having another player to try an compete with Steam is a good thing, right?
The other platforms on PC, for example Steam, itch, gog, all do better things.
Itch really supports game jams, which in turn supports smaller devs and puts out a lot of unique stuff, much of which is free. They also allow devs to choose what percent itch gets with even zero as an option.
Valve is a massive contributor to open source projects and the game dev community. They have contributed a ton to SDL which is used to make many games and engines, and Proton is rocketing wine development forward. Steam also allows adding non-Steam games and even lets you run them with Proton just as easily as Steam native games.
GoG is DRM free, enough said. That in and of itself is one of the most pro consumer stances.
The only plus for Epic is they give out free games, no other redeeming qualities or features.
Don’t forget the beauty of PC is that it’s an open platform, and Epic does nothing to support that.
Not only that, but they made the platform ever so slightly less open when they bought a bunch of games just so that they could remove them from other stores. They garner hatred because they don’t try to gain a competitive edge by being good or unique in some way, they’re just making gamers who aren’t willing to download their launcher suffer.
As others said, EGS is just a fucking cancer, not a competition. A good competition to Steam is actually Microsoft App Store. It’s a very streamlined mobile-like experience.
I do both PC and console gaming, and I’ve personally never gotten the Epic hate. As a store it’s not amazing but it’s fine. I will generally go to Steam first but I’m also not going to boycott a game just because it’s Epic exclusive.
I’m not petty enough to give up on their free games. I just claim them in the browser to avoid dealing with their launcher.
But it’s important to note that, if their UX is so terrible that people avoid their launcher like the plague, they get fewer chances to tempt users into buying anything. If the sales are low, most developers won’t even bother listing their games on EGS. It’s a death spiral.
It is a good thing to have competition. The hate is because they are doing things people don’t generally like. Exclusivity deals for one thing. Epic can’t really compete with steam because they are too far behind on features, so they resort to exclusivity deals which aren’t really good for any consumer. One could argue it is the fault of publishers taking them, but that is just looking at it from a purely business perspective. As a consumer, I don’t really care about the business side… I don’t profit from it. So I don’t really wonder why gamers are mad at epic for it.
Here is the mistake. It does not trying to compete. It only tries to catch as many fish in its bucket as possible, while leveraging (burning) Fortnite money.
It’s a wasted effort, and it will never come close to Steam like this. It may even die along with Fortnite, or degrade further.
People are going to list all the features Steam has over Epic, ignoring that Steam has had ~22 years to get to where it is. The original Steam experience was garbage, and lots of us older gamers knew what would happen and hated that Steam would be the primary catalyst to killing off physical media for PC games back in the mid-2000s, especially as broadband internet access was becoming far more accessible.
Don’t get me wrong, Valve has done alright so far in terms of game ownership, but once Gabe dies/retires, it’s only a matter of time before some greedy fucks force Valve to go public and the pure enshittification process begins.
Lol, no one is listing steam features. Epic is perfectly capable of being pieces of shit and a garbage company without needing comparison.
EGS is today as old as steam was in 2010. Yet it is still behind 2010 steam’s features. All that on top of all the unethical and shady stuff they have done and the many different ways they make gaming worse for everyone.
Their Guides feature didn’t come out until 2012sh, same with workshop. The only thing Steam had in 2010 that Epic doesn’t have right now is Community, which launched around 2007sh.
Like I said, Steam was not that good for a long time.
People are going to list all the features Steam has over Epic, ignoring that Steam has had ~22 years to get to where it is.
And then there are people talking about how steam has had those 22 years, while completely ignoring how epic could just copy how steam did things and work from there.
Sure, they can’t see what happens in the back end, but I somehow doubt that valve is doing anything ground breaking there that others can’t think of.
Okay, but have EGS really improved in any significant way in the 7 years they’ve been up? I don’t see it. Plus, a smart competitor would absolutely look at Steam’s history and learn from it; they don’t seem to have done that at all.
If they had spent the same amount of money on developing the storefront that they have on exclusivity deals, EGS could have been a worthy competitor.
I don’t disagree that Epic could definitely be doing better with their storefront. They have made improvements, albeit at a glacial pace. They’ve added achievements and reviews, but it’s still a pale comparison to what Steam offers. That being said, no one seems to dig at GoG’s shitty storefront and app nearly to the same degree. Luckily, GOG allows third-party access, so you can at least replace their app with other alternatives.
Regardless, I’m not defending Epic, I was simply trying to avoid doing the mindless “fuck Epic” and offer some counterargument. Epic is a shitty company, but some competition is better than zero competition. Yes, GOG exists, but they hardly have any marketshare at all and if CDPR ever stops supporting it as much as they have been, their future likely isn’t looking so great. It’s like AMD vs Nvidia. Both companies aren’t great, but I’d rather both exist than only Nvidia and/or AMD; and of course, even more competition would be even better.
exclusivity deals, forcing them to drop from steam even after they first announced release on there. They also target crowdfunded games like phoenixpoint.
Even if they have fixed that specific issue, why would you believe they have fixed anything else?
first comment on the reddit thread
thlm 5mo ago
Epic Games Launcher Incorrect Default Permissions Local Privilege Escalation Vulnerability
CVSS SCORE
7.8
This vulnerability allows local attackers to escalate privileges on affected installations of Epic Games Launcher. An attacker must first obtain the ability to execute low-privileged code on the target system in order to exploit this vulnerability.
The specific flaw exists within the product installer. The product applies incorrect default permissions to a sensitive folder. An attacker can leverage this vulnerability to escalate privileges and execute arbitrary code in the context of SYSTEM.
DISCLOSURE TIMELINE
2024-07-16 - Vulnerability reported to vendor
2024-12-04 - Coordinated public release of advisory
2024-12-06 - Advisory Updated
That timeline is disgusting
So in essence, its not bad because it trys to compete with steam. Its bad because they really dont try to compete and just do anti-user things. And people dont care because “yay free games I’m never going to look at again”.
If you want to see what actual competition looks like at the moment, take a look at GOG.
I don’t hate times exclusives that much because that’s done extra cashflow for the dev to be able to either finish their game or polish it further. I still don’t think we’d have gotten Alan Wake 2 at least the version we got without that epic deal. I also don’t know if square would’ve bothered even entertaining the idea of porting all of the kingdoms hearts games either.
There are a few layers to it. I’ll start with the legit reasons and hope the jackasses don’t read too deep in:
EGS was built around the idea of providing what people need/want rather than EVERYTHING. Some of that was truly asinine (no shopping cart for like 2 years?) and some was a conscious choice based on everyone saying they don’t want their video game store to be a social media network. Unfortunately… people apparently DO want their video game store to be social media.
Every store handles regional pricing and distribution differently and, allegedly, EGS had worse coverage in a few of the countries The Internet actually knows exists.
Tim Sweney is a complete and utter dipshit and always has been and it is REALLY hard to not hate everything he touches.
EGS rapidly entwined itself with Fortnite because Fortnite makes more than the GDP of some small nations. But we are hardcore gamers so we all hate Fortnite.
Sweeney/Epic actually accidentally argued for consumer rights against Apple which, in turn, led to the full force of Apple running smear campaigns against Epic to make sure that we all realized how much we love walled gardens
Sweeney/Epic ALSO kind of picked a fight with Steam by pointing out how little developers get from any given sale. Which… because we all love Valve means that Epic are assholes and developers all actively want to strive to get the negotiating power of a Call of Duty or Rockstar.
Speaking of. EGS isn’t Valve and any alternative is inherently evil because we all love Valve.
So what was a mediocre store with a lot of free games and a tendency to give developers a giant sack of money for one year of exclusivity became The Devil.
First, the EGS software is really bad. It’s slow, clunky, a pain to navigate, and is missing loads of basic features that Steam has had for decades.
Second, rather than improving their offering to make it more competitive and appealing to consumers, they’ve utilized coercive tactics like exclusivity to force adoption rather than earning it on merits.
There’s A LOT to talk so you better check there. If you don’t want to check, wait till your account get hacked and try ask support to get it back! You can give all the info you want but 99% of the times they just say “fuck you” and you lost everything
Edit: Can you customize your profile pic there? :)
Granted not everyone cares, I remember them giving away a pfp with Sifu but there’s still no pfp customization. Why? They don’t care about you but about your money
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Threatening Steam’s monopoly. And the unwashed Stockholmed masses hate that.
The other platforms on PC, for example Steam, itch, gog, all do better things.
Itch really supports game jams, which in turn supports smaller devs and puts out a lot of unique stuff, much of which is free. They also allow devs to choose what percent itch gets with even zero as an option.
Valve is a massive contributor to open source projects and the game dev community. They have contributed a ton to SDL which is used to make many games and engines, and Proton is rocketing wine development forward. Steam also allows adding non-Steam games and even lets you run them with Proton just as easily as Steam native games.
GoG is DRM free, enough said. That in and of itself is one of the most pro consumer stances.
The only plus for Epic is they give out free games, no other redeeming qualities or features.
Don’t forget the beauty of PC is that it’s an open platform, and Epic does nothing to support that.
Not only that, but they made the platform ever so slightly less open when they bought a bunch of games just so that they could remove them from other stores. They garner hatred because they don’t try to gain a competitive edge by being good or unique in some way, they’re just making gamers who aren’t willing to download their launcher suffer.
Part of the hate is against Sweeny. The rest of the hate is that it isn’t steam.
Don’t forget about exclusives!
As others said, EGS is just a fucking cancer, not a competition. A good competition to Steam is actually Microsoft App Store. It’s a very streamlined mobile-like experience.
Eww
I’m just there for the free games
I do both PC and console gaming, and I’ve personally never gotten the Epic hate. As a store it’s not amazing but it’s fine. I will generally go to Steam first but I’m also not going to boycott a game just because it’s Epic exclusive.
I’m not petty enough to give up on their free games. I just claim them in the browser to avoid dealing with their launcher.
But it’s important to note that, if their UX is so terrible that people avoid their launcher like the plague, they get fewer chances to tempt users into buying anything. If the sales are low, most developers won’t even bother listing their games on EGS. It’s a death spiral.
It is a good thing to have competition. The hate is because they are doing things people don’t generally like. Exclusivity deals for one thing. Epic can’t really compete with steam because they are too far behind on features, so they resort to exclusivity deals which aren’t really good for any consumer. One could argue it is the fault of publishers taking them, but that is just looking at it from a purely business perspective. As a consumer, I don’t really care about the business side… I don’t profit from it. So I don’t really wonder why gamers are mad at epic for it.
Here is the mistake. It does not trying to compete. It only tries to catch as many fish in its bucket as possible, while leveraging (burning) Fortnite money.
It’s a wasted effort, and it will never come close to Steam like this. It may even die along with Fortnite, or degrade further.
People are going to list all the features Steam has over Epic, ignoring that Steam has had ~22 years to get to where it is. The original Steam experience was garbage, and lots of us older gamers knew what would happen and hated that Steam would be the primary catalyst to killing off physical media for PC games back in the mid-2000s, especially as broadband internet access was becoming far more accessible.
Don’t get me wrong, Valve has done alright so far in terms of game ownership, but once Gabe dies/retires, it’s only a matter of time before some greedy fucks force Valve to go public and the pure enshittification process begins.
Lol, no one is listing steam features. Epic is perfectly capable of being pieces of shit and a garbage company without needing comparison.
EGS is today as old as steam was in 2010. Yet it is still behind 2010 steam’s features. All that on top of all the unethical and shady stuff they have done and the many different ways they make gaming worse for everyone.
Their Guides feature didn’t come out until 2012sh, same with workshop. The only thing Steam had in 2010 that Epic doesn’t have right now is Community, which launched around 2007sh.
Like I said, Steam was not that good for a long time.
And then there are people talking about how steam has had those 22 years, while completely ignoring how epic could just copy how steam did things and work from there.
Sure, they can’t see what happens in the back end, but I somehow doubt that valve is doing anything ground breaking there that others can’t think of.
Okay, but have EGS really improved in any significant way in the 7 years they’ve been up? I don’t see it. Plus, a smart competitor would absolutely look at Steam’s history and learn from it; they don’t seem to have done that at all.
If they had spent the same amount of money on developing the storefront that they have on exclusivity deals, EGS could have been a worthy competitor.
I don’t disagree that Epic could definitely be doing better with their storefront. They have made improvements, albeit at a glacial pace. They’ve added achievements and reviews, but it’s still a pale comparison to what Steam offers. That being said, no one seems to dig at GoG’s shitty storefront and app nearly to the same degree. Luckily, GOG allows third-party access, so you can at least replace their app with other alternatives.
Regardless, I’m not defending Epic, I was simply trying to avoid doing the mindless “fuck Epic” and offer some counterargument. Epic is a shitty company, but some competition is better than zero competition. Yes, GOG exists, but they hardly have any marketshare at all and if CDPR ever stops supporting it as much as they have been, their future likely isn’t looking so great. It’s like AMD vs Nvidia. Both companies aren’t great, but I’d rather both exist than only Nvidia and/or AMD; and of course, even more competition would be even better.
removed by mod
Agreed on all points. Sorry if I sounded overly antagonistic.
Epic doesn’t support my operating system.
Which operating system is that?
TempleOS
I rather gladly take my free games from them.
Here are some reasons:
exclusivity deals, forcing them to drop from steam even after they first announced release on there. They also target crowdfunded games like phoenixpoint.
The launcher is spyware
https://www.resetera.com/threads/developing-epic-games-launcher-appears-to-collect-your-steam-friends-play-history-up2-valve-responds-see-threadmarks.105385/
https://forums.unrealengine.com/t/epic-launcher-and-privacy/123592
and epic is owned by tencent 40%
They not really trying to improve their launcher but instead focus on hurting steam and by extension the users.
Its like some shady guy trying to lure kids to a van by offering free candy.
The launcher is security risk for your system https://www.reddit.com/r/fuckepic/comments/1hm9mh9/epic_games_launcher_had_a_serious_security_flaw/
Even if they have fixed that specific issue, why would you believe they have fixed anything else?
first comment on the reddit thread
So in essence, its not bad because it trys to compete with steam. Its bad because they really dont try to compete and just do anti-user things. And people dont care because “yay free games I’m never going to look at again”.
If you want to see what actual competition looks like at the moment, take a look at GOG.
I don’t hate times exclusives that much because that’s done extra cashflow for the dev to be able to either finish their game or polish it further. I still don’t think we’d have gotten Alan Wake 2 at least the version we got without that epic deal. I also don’t know if square would’ve bothered even entertaining the idea of porting all of the kingdoms hearts games either.
There are a few layers to it. I’ll start with the legit reasons and hope the jackasses don’t read too deep in:
So what was a mediocre store with a lot of free games and a tendency to give developers a giant sack of money for one year of exclusivity became The Devil.
Not sure why you’re getting downvoted this is actually the most thought out response I’ve seen.
Thanks!
First, the EGS software is really bad. It’s slow, clunky, a pain to navigate, and is missing loads of basic features that Steam has had for decades.
Second, rather than improving their offering to make it more competitive and appealing to consumers, they’ve utilized coercive tactics like exclusivity to force adoption rather than earning it on merits.
https://www.reddit.com/r/fuckepic/comments/ij48bf/rfuckepic_for_dummies_2020_edition/ old but gold
There’s A LOT to talk so you better check there. If you don’t want to check, wait till your account get hacked and try ask support to get it back! You can give all the info you want but 99% of the times they just say “fuck you” and you lost everything
Edit: Can you customize your profile pic there? :)
Granted not everyone cares, I remember them giving away a pfp with Sifu but there’s still no pfp customization. Why? They don’t care about you but about your money