The OP says global preloading and gifting are going live soon. Bundles are also on the roadmap. At the end of the day though, what’s the main benefit of a bundle? It’s the discount, right? I’m not sure the discounts offered via bundles on Steam are an overall better deal compared to Epic offering cashback of 5% on everything, sometimes increased to 20% (like now). For some countries, Epic also offers significantly better base prices compared to Steam. It still supports the Turkish and Argentinian currencies and presumably has specific price guidelines for those as well, compared to Steam having removed those options. I also remember Epic talking about supporting more regional currencies compared to Steam. From looking at the documentation now, it’s 37 on Steam and 43 on Epic.
Regarding the app, I disagree. It was very convenient to have everything in one place (which Steam fans should understand, given their reluctance to use a different launcher) and I used the chat feature all the time, but after Valve separated them, I just got tired of switching and ended up not installing the chat app after resetting my phone OS. Sometimes I need to message a friend, but I feel like the effort of installing it and logging in is not worth it for those occasions.
People love to bash Epic and list all the (often redundant) things Steam is ahead in, but nobody mentions the ways in which Epic is ahead. Something as simple as being able to chat with your friends is no longer a feature of the mobile Steam client, but if Epic sticks to the roadmap, their app will allow that. It also makes me think of how despite so many years of existence, Steam still doesn’t allow to add game editions to your wishlist, while Epic has allowed that from the start. It was also the first to introduce a custom value field for downloads throttling, before Steam followed suit.
If we dig just a bit deeper, it seems your issue is with the whole concept of not owning games, which is the very nature of Steam and its main policy, aptly called the subscriber agreement. Taking that out on game developers, let alone a competitor with more lax DRM practices, is also missing the forest for the trees.
You do realize the market share of GOG is about 0.5%, right? That’s despite Projekt Red being a beloved developer, the great launcher features, the fairest DRM practices, many years in the business, and so on. It only proves the point that Steam is a monopoly that cannot be disrupted whether you do it nicely like GOG or aggressively like Epic.
Probably Fortnite. It’s not just one battle royale game anymore. If I feel like racing, I can play Rocket Racing. If I feel like building, I can play Lego Fortnite. Festival if I want a Guitar Hero experience, Ballistic if I want a Counter-Strike experience, and so on. It’s all tied to Epic’s servers though, so it’s not for life.
Thanks. Makes more sense now. It’s this edition if purchasing on Steam. Would I have the New York and Haven Island DLC if I already own Hitman 1 & 2?
Modder here. Denuvo has absolutely no effect on modding. Steam DRM checks the integrity of the executable and also crashes on breakpoints. That said, it’s easy to remove with Steamless. Memory hacks work fine.
Edit: However, Space Marine 2 is going to use EAC, which is a kernel-level anti-cheat which prevents any modding short of utilizing or creating private hacks that may involve rogue system drivers.
Just realized that I was a little gaslit there, as Epic has already had bundles since 2019, with one of the most recent being the STALKER bundle that costs less than the individual games combined. Just like a game edition, a bundle can even be wishlisted on Epic, a feature lacking on Steam.