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What's up with Epic Games? (lemmy.world)

submitted 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) by ElPussyKangaroo@lemmy.world to c/games@lemmy.world

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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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[-] UprisingVoltage@feddit.it 147 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago)

Epic cons:

Filled to the brim with DRM, at the point where you can't even launch many singleplayer games offline
Actively against linux, for some fucking reason
Bad launcher (but this one is no biggie, you can and should use Heroic launcher instead of the official one)
Bad store in general compared to steam
Ties with Tencent (super anti-consumer chinese state-owned megacorp)

Epic pros:

Free games
With coupons prices can get VERY low
When it opened I heard the percent they take from game devs was lower than the other stores (not sure if it's still the case and tbh if it ever was)

Steam pros:

Pushing linux gaming like their life depends on it
Generally correct towards the consumer
Huge store and many information, from the game store pages to the workshop
During sales prices are good

Steam cons:

Drm
Bad official app Ux and messy ui

Gog

I don't know anything besides the fact that it has drm-free games and that it's owned by CDPR (the guys who developed the witcher series and cyberpunk)

I personally purchase my games on steam, since I think their contribution to linux gaming is crucial for linux to go mainstream

Choose what you will knowing this. If someone else wants to add something to this list you're welcome to do so.

[-] Alto@kbin.social 126 points 6 months ago

Valve is what happens when someone who's not just outright fucking evil invents a money printing machine

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[-] ono@lemmy.ca 64 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago)

Epic cons:

Also:

Epic has already been caught scanning and collecting data from files on people's hard drives that are totally unrelated to Epic or its games.
Epic's habit of interfering with game availability, through exclusivity deals.

Ties with Tencent (super anti-consumer chinese state-owned megacorp)

To be more clear about it, Tencent is Epic's largest investor, so they obviously have a great deal of influence over and access to anything they want from Epic (likely including user data) and they directly benefit from Epic's growth.

Steam pros:

Also:

Actively funding and supporting development of linux gaming technologies for more than a few years now, to the point where linux is now very much a viable gaming platform.

Steam cons:
Drm

Given that DRM on Steam is entirely up to each game publisher, I don't think it's appropriate to list under "Steam cons". I'm not even sure that any of my Steam games have DRM.

If you mean that most Steam games expect to find an instance of Steam running, you should know that is not DRM, and it's trivially replaced with the open-source Goldberg Emulator or a similar tool.

Gog
I don’t know anything besides the fact that it has drm-free games

Another plus for GOG is that they let you download games with a web browser. No special app required. (I think Itch.io does this as well.)

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[-] Hubi@lemmy.world 50 points 6 months ago

Don’t forget that Epic buys up existing licenses to sell them as exclusives. They even pulled Rocket League from Steam after buying the studio.

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[-] Dagger@kbin.social 16 points 6 months ago

Steam have DRM free games too, you don't have to launch them through steam even.

[-] mycus@kbin.social 5 points 6 months ago

steam drm is so easy to bypass that it almost doesn't count

[-] MrScottyTay@sh.itjust.works 14 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago)

A con for GOG is their site is slow as fuck. And god forbid you want to go back to a previous page, you'll likely lose where you were looking 9 times out of ten. Especially so on mobile.

Pros: Can be the only place you can get old games that would've been unavailable otherwise

The older games are often really really cheap, especially during sales

[-] cottonmon@lemmy.world 5 points 6 months ago

Another con is that GOG versions are usually not updated as much as other versions are. It's a shame, because I'd prefer to use GOG when possible.

[-] Grass@sh.itjust.works 3 points 6 months ago

Gog also seemingly no 2fa other than an faq page with instructions that cannot be followed.

[-] MrScottyTay@sh.itjust.works 2 points 6 months ago

I always get 2FA'd on GoG for an emailed code

[-] Grass@sh.itjust.works 1 points 6 months ago

Do you remember how to configure it? Last I checked I went through every account and settings page on the store site and seemingly separate customer service log in and no clear way to set it up.

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[-] Glide@lemmy.ca 11 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago)

I want to note that Steam isn't inherently a DRM platform, as there are many games on Steam which are DRM free. Even ones that require the Steam backend can be bundled with Steamworks, serving all the same backend requirements without Steam needing to be installed on the machine.

[-] ares35@kbin.social 4 points 6 months ago

yea, they steam has some drm-free games available... but steam is a drm platform.. one that also helped normalize one-time-use codes and tying 'purchases' to a non-transferable online account. valve did more to shred the used pc game market than any other company.

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[-] JimmyMcGill@lemmy.world 11 points 6 months ago

Steam UI is messy but they have a ton of functionality in their store/system. Epic took ages to even get a functioning cart, Steam has tons of features which are not even tied to the games in their store like remote play and Steam VR. Family sharing is also really cool for example. Also Steam basically killed piracy for a long time due to amazing Steam sales + convenience of use.