Comment on What's up with Epic Games?
Aurix@lemmy.world 9 months ago
-
Epic Games paid big money to make some games platform exclusive.
-
Their launcher is, just like Origin and Ubisoft’s one, features wise vastly inferior to Steam.
-
Smaller indie level multiplayer games do not have crossplatform play with Steam, or other issues like DNF duel breaking player room ping indicators.
None of these explain the amount of frequency of anemosity towards Epic for their store. It seems some are in a parasocial relationship with their Steam launcher. A bit like console fanboy wars. And for some reason they prefer a monopoly without alternatives than one with alternatives. Perhaps some see the installation of another program as an intrusion to to their private comfort. Not rationally like Microsoft’s ill willed spying telemetry, but emotionally led. I encountered a few people who just don’t want to install new programs and perhaps see Epic a threat to their habits.
But I dislike them for dropping Unreal Tournament.
wildginger@lemmy.myserv.one 9 months ago
I dont use them explicitly for reason 1.
Buying out a game after it was already set to sell on other platforms, and after people had already preordered it from those platforms, because your store lacked such basic functions as a check out cart so no one wanted to use it put them on the curb for me permenantly.
In a capitalist system, companies get worse in quality as they think they can get away with it to improve profit. Starting your store off at such a low point for your customers tells me that they are going to drop much lower once they think they have the stable playerbase to get away with it.
So I am completely disinterested in building a library of games on a platform I see as destined to become worse than the starting line of in the gutter.
Aurix@lemmy.world 9 months ago
Your points are very valid and it was a terrible thing for Epic to do, but they backpedaled on that and have never done the removing a product from Steam afterwards ever again.
ashok36@lemmy.world 9 months ago
Yeah, because Steam changed their terms of service to prevent companies from doing said bait and switch schemes.
wildginger@lemmy.myserv.one 9 months ago
No, they have never done it so far. Because it cost them a large amount of public opinion when they had almost nothing else to lean on. It was a decision that they survived only because their other products like unreal and fortnite funded it.
Once they think they have enough dedicated users, who are unwilling to leave their libraries, and they believe they have earned a steam equivalent customer reputation? They will do it again.