What's up with Epic Games?
What's up with Epic Games?
I can't seem to find that one comment explaining the issue with them...
But for the sake of promoting conversation on Lemmy, what's the issue with Epic, and why should I go for Steam or GoG?
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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Issues I can think of in the order they occur to me. These are off the top of my head refections not researched.
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Group think: If I shop where most other people shop I have outsourced research and decision making. Is there a good reason? maybe, maybe not but I'm going to follow the masses because I can't research everything.
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Stability: neither store offers physical assets so if the store shuts down my purchases could also vanish. Steam is a bigger player and appears to be more stable and GOG is DRM free.
3 The shopping experience: I personally find the layout of steam better for discovery and finding reviews. With the current epic coupon available I have looked on epic for games and if you're just browsing it is not a intuitive experience. GOG similarly has a variety of sorting tools available.
- private vs public ownership: Epic is a public for profit company. Over and over I have seen public companies screw there customers in the interest of profit. Valve (I believe, this is really off the top of my head) is privately held and as such can choose to prioritize whatever their leadership wants. They can't just be bought out and taken in a totally different direction.
This all could be insane ramblings but these are the things that motivate me to spend my money on Gog or steam in general.
Fair enough I guess... I only use Epic for the free games, so I can't say I've spent much time genuinely looking at the user experience 😅.
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