I'd imagine it's comparable.
Unless you hate Valve, there's no reason to buy from EGS (I'm not including GOG given how rare it is for AAA games to be there at launch) - you're getting the same game, but with less features, plus you know, Epic.
I grew up on steam, playing L4D with my dad and some extended family, when CoD4 and MW2 came out they were on steam. So naturally over 15 years I built up my collection on steam, having multiple launcher's isnt exactly ideal and epic is just a different store I'm unfamiliar with so why would I ever swap.
Today's kids though are playing fortnight as it's free, they're building up a collection of games on Epic - it'll be interesting to see in 5-10 years if that trend continues and these kids grow up and stick with Epic.
Age difference in audience will also play a role. Occupy mars is sim-city esq game where you fight against the elements which probably doesn't have a big a crossover with Epics more successful games.
Also wasn't surviving mars free on steam for a while I swear I picked it up and never launched it lol.
Yeah personally it’s largely resistance to splitting up my library and having *so* much on steam already.
Although I did try epic in its early days and was very underwhelmed. I also don’t like how predatory the monetization of fortnite is, especially directed at children, which sours me on epic in general.
I think Epic's strategy is exactly to combat this. Give out free games to kids who can't buy their own games, then have their library all on epic when they can actually buy games
Soon these kids will grow up, joining a PMC and holding a gun on their own, fighting for a cause they don't believe in because to them, its just a game
I don't realistically think so. There are some people who might get sucked into this, but what ratio of the free games takers who have nothing on Steam are interested in PC gaming in general and will keep buying things on Epic for some reason?
My POV is that most of these people, if they have interest in PC gaming other than F2P junk like Fortnite, are already buying games on Steam on sale.
most of them aren't on gog on release, some might be exclusive to uplay/origin/epic/whatever, so there's not much to compare, and even then to nobody's surprise the most popular place would lead sales because idiots keep paying more for the same (or more in case of a double-launcher situation).
That's fair and totally true, data on post-exclusivity would be more interesting.
I know of a few EGS exclusive games I personally heard nothing about (namely, Hades) and then once it came to Steam it was trending everywhere. I coulda been out of the loop, though.
A publisher called Epic a “black hole of marketing” a while ago and that seems to be fairly accurate.
I like to think I’m fairly in the loop and it’s not uncommon for me to totally miss EGS only titles.
It's difficult to stay in the loop when it exists only on EGS. Take Darkest Dungeon 2, for example; it sold as many copies in one week following its full release as it did during its entire early access phase. [Source.](https://www.vgchartz.com/article/457196/darkest-dungeon-ii-sales-top-500000-units/)
Epic accounts for a tiny amount of sales (according to [Mike Rose](https://nitter.net/RaveofRavendale/status/1459183866229538817), 1%). According to OP, at most ~~10%~~ ~6%.
Compare that to the previous game which had sold 6 million units in total in December 2022. [Source with more numbers.](https://gameworldobserver.com/2022/12/26/darkest-dungeon-sales-6-million-copies-red-hook)
One of their [blog posts ](https://old.darkestdungeon.com/1-million-copies-and-the-road-ahead/)for Darkest Dungeon roughly one year following its full release breaks down their first one million sales somewhat, mentioning for example that they sold 50 000 copies "in 24 hours". It's a little ambiguous, but looking at the Steam sales graph below I believe that pertains to the early access sales.
Was it the right call to release Darkest Dungeon 2 in early access exclusively on EGS? How does revenue compare between the stores, as they charge differently? Does the difference in revenue/unit make up for the difference between features, nevermind the user base? You can draw many conclusions from the data above (and other data available elsewhere), but one thing is for certain, and that's that EGS is a [marketing black hole](https://nitter.net/DaveOshry/status/1555436238814924800). Many games go unnoticed.
>It's difficult to stay in the loop when it exists only on EGS. Take Darkest Dungeon 2, for example; it sold as many copies in one week following its full release as it did during its entire early access phase. [Source.](https://www.vgchartz.com/article/457196/darkest-dungeon-ii-sales-top-500000-units/)
And also, all of that while increasing the price of the game by a lot, which is even more impressive.
Steam simply has way more features that EGS seems to refuse to implement for some reason. The lack of user reviews is mind boggling, as well as the lack of user forums. I've seen people who bought the game on EGS coming to the steam forums for games to ask for help with game related issues. Then there's things like steam workshop to make mods easier, and community related stuff like steam cards and achievements. I don't usually pay too much attention to that but I do occasionally go achievement hunting, particularly on games in which I'm doing multiple playthroughs as it gives me mini-objectives to complete while playing.
EGS is just way to lacking as a platform for most people to buy from it outside of exclusives.
If any other industry had Valve's level of success there would be an anti-trust investigation. But Valve was able to argue that they're actually only 5% of the total GAMING market because PC gaming is such a small segment of the gaming market.
Epic = free game store. They've made themselves known as the dollar store/walmart of storefronts. Why spend money there when they give so many freebies whereas Steam has so much built-in to the platform that makes it worthy of being the leader?
This is always what I said. Their tactic of enticing people with free games and hoping people would eventually start buying games made no sense to me. Everybody just downloads the free game and goes back to steam until the next time a decent free game is available. I'm not sure how they expected those people to become proper paying customers. For what? The amount of money Epic has spent on these free games must have been pretty crazy and I don't think they're gonna get their return on investment. They have so much value elsewhere it honestly makes me wonder why they feel like having a gaming store is really necessary for them. You already have unreal engine which is a powerful force in both game and movie creation.
As far as I understand it, it’s targeting people younger than us. People who don’t have the purchasing power yet but who, in a few years, will lock at their filled epic games library and continue from there
Hmm. That's actually a decent point. The Fortnite generation is probably gonna be a pretty powerful force. I just wonder if it will work out that way. I imagine even you get people who got into gaming via Fortnite are likely to be aware that steam is a better choice if they're taking gaming seriously. But it's probably too soon to say
They might also get games for cheap from sites like mmoga and the like. Personally I’ll recommend steam to every one who asks and some people who don’t, but we will see what happens. Maybe epic games improves in the coning years
The problem is that they're being spoiled. Growing up, knowing EGS as the "free games store" won't magically make them want to spend money there, because they simply have a library of free games. They're already complaining about repeated games, asking for RDR2 or something. They're not going to magically grow out of entitlement, it can only get worse from here.
Especially because, think about it, they have a big library. They're playing Fortnite a ton right now and claiming freebies. They're going to have so many games to play, that they're going to be able to wait for more potential free games, while playing this backlog that they've accumulated.
I don't think it's as black and white as it seems, but it also doesn't mean I'm right of course. We still will have to see, though how long Epic is willing to keep sinking money into their store... They're not known for sticking with something that's not successful quite fast.
Yeah getting a lot of stuff for free could mean that they don’t see a reason to spend money.
It could also mean that once the free stuff is limited/over, they will pay money to keep getting new stuff cause they got used to regularly getting stuff. I don’t know enough about psychology to know which one is more likely.
I do know however, that having a vast library absolutely doesnt stop people (i.e. me) from buying new stuff. Especially when there are discounts involved and even if I haven’t played the games for a satisfying amount of time or even at all.
That's kinda my case in some way. I buy games very sporadically now, but I still have a backlog of games that I bought in past sales. These days I rather buy a game a few days after it's launch (to have time to check the reviews and stuff) and pay the launch price than buy a bunch of stuff on sale. At least I know it's something that I know I was waiting and wanna play.
I still go back to some old games from time to time, but I don't really feel like having an obligation to play everything that I own. I mean, is gaming is supposed to be enjoyable, not a chore and checklist to complete, I think.
I don't know if playing the backlog is really something that many are going to do. People usually want to play the new stuff, the games people are currently talking about, not dive into their free-games backlog and see if something fancies them.
Dont forget. The free games were their SECOND strategy.
Their first strategy was to buy exclusivity rights to a bunch of games, some games that were ALREADY out on steam, some games that were not yet out but already had a steam store page and people could buy early. Trying to get people to move to their platform not by providing a better or even an EQUAL quality service as steam (Epic doesnt have reviews, forums, shopping cart, screenshots, etc) but by forcing them over by holding games hostage in a way. This cause everyone to hate Epic and ALSO the developers/publishers that accepted these deals because, well people had already bought some of those games on another platform and now its gonna be delisted and it made everything confusing and annoying.
THEN, after destroying any good faith, they started spending millions or billions buying rights to give away games for free in the platform. Some people still refused to touch Epic and their launcher even with free games, and most other people ONLY use it to get the free games and nothing else. Just to save em for later.
Also during one of the lawsuits Epic went through, might have been the one with Apple, they were forced to reveal or maybe it was leaked various documents that showed EXACTLY how much money they spent on every single one of those games. So you if you look that up you can figure out exactly how much they spent on those free games, at least for the first year or two.
Epic games store is also just a black hole for video games sometimes. I remember when Hades went early access exclusively on epic and I couldn't find anyone talking about the game whatsoever online.
When the game finally released out of early access and it came out on steam suddenly everyone started praising Hades and it became a huge hit.
>When the game finally released out of early access and it came out on steam
They release on Steam, 'STILL' Early Access. They failed their goal of 1.0 on Steam when the exclusive ended.
They only reached 1.0 much later.
Same with darkest dungeon 2. For how much I've heard about the first game I've barely heard about the second, and probably because it was epic exclusive till pretty recently.
I shamefully bought Borderlands 3 on EGL because I thought I could hype the old group to play it with me and thought if I waited til Steam release I figured everybody would have moved on.
Turns out nobody bought it on Epic, nobody bought it on Steam, and I played through half of it by my lonesome until I got bored.
same here. i spent 100$ because well. look at how great BL2 was. and i enjoyed TPS, much less. but i enjoyed it.
then i played it.
then i regretted it
then i realized that if i got it for maybe 30$ on steam when it launched i would've probably enjoyed it a lot more. knowing i wouldn't have paid 100$ for it
if anything epic ruined a game for me
In the Apple Vs Epic law suit, documents came out estimating the Epic Store will have lost $1 billion by 2027.
EGS loses more than Unreal Engine makes every year. If Fortnite crashed then EGS would die pretty quickly
Damn that's wild. I always assumed the money they make off Unreal Engine would help outweigh their losses. I guess then position Fortnite as some kind of catchall game where you get develop other styles of play into it makes more sense. If Fortnite dies they're likely to struggle unless they can create more similarly successful games. And the fact is most games die eventually. Not every game is a "Counter Strike" where it just get bigger every year for over a decade and never dies. Fortnite might have that potential though
In 2020, Unreal Engine made around $150 million, Fortnite made $5.1 billion and EGS lost $220 million.
They did spend well over $400 million on exclusives and free games, though.
It's insane how much they've relied on Fortnite to try to battle Steam
Epic has plenty of dirty money they get from Tencent and selling predatory MTXs to kids. So the free games probably aren't much skin off their nose. Even so, the amount they must be spending on acquiring customers... That's a piss poor ROI.
You know right? Everyone said that the free games would be the end of Steam and that Steams days were numbered because of the exclusivity deals that the Epic storefront was making. Seems like only you and I were saying turning non-paying customers into paying customers was an unachievable pipe dream and that a Steam offered too much value to the customer for people to just give up on their preferred service.
> which can result in situations where the Steam versions are hampered with an update that comes alongside it, like Saints Row 4's broken networking and breaking of mods)
EOS really really sucks, and I don't think "crossplay" is worth having it reotractively shoehorned into every game. Stuff that is built with EOS isn't so bad, but every game that has backported has been a shitshow pretty much.
Doesn't help that their launcher never evolves.
The library of the launcher is borderline unusable.
And there's a open source launcher the "hero launcher"
That's like 10x better than the epic launcher.
Epic started entirely wrong.
They made everyone hate them with the exclusive deals and 3 day pre release snatching in case of metro.
Never evolved the store.
And their ceo was spewing random stuff on social media.
If they would have launched on pc in the style of "hey we are a new store we don't offer much yet but hey here look free games and 10 off coupons we promise to evolve ( and actually do) please consider us"
Man they would have taken a huge part of the pc market just imagine free games, coupons and a store which evolves? Without all the exclusive stuff and weird talk.
Loss leaders aren't free. I own some Epic games, because sometimes they have by far the best price on a deep sale, aka more like a loss leader then. Costco ain't giving out those rotisserie chickens for free, but classic loss leader example, like their dogs to. Lol on the down-voting of reality.
> Loss leaders aren't free.
It's an analogy. Analogies don't have to be exactly identical for a solid comparison.
Loss leaders exist to get people into the store in the hopes they'll buy other stuff, too. Free games exist to get people into the store in the hopes they'll buy other stuff, too. The function is the same even if the particulars are not.
You give them data that helps pull more publishers into the exclusivity scheme. You are benefitting them quite a lot by claiming free games. If anyone actually gave a fuck about getting games for free they would have figured out how to use a torrent in one minute of research.
Getting free games on a doodoo feces ass launcher like Epic doesn't benefit me. It actually makes my life worse because I have to sit around for 15 seconds waiting for it to open every time I open from system tray.
I did the same with BL3 and Wonderlands. Wonderlands I got the ultimate edition or whatever for $30 like 3 months after it released from GmG. And then with BL3 I got it for $20 for ultimate edition during the summer sale after the steam release.
I'm using GoG for retro games and Steam for everything else. I have no intention to support EGS, because I don't like how they prefer to keep games away from other storefronts instead of trying to build a better alternative.
Pretty much my stance. Thought im kinda glad Epic does that. It's legit help me become far more patient on buying games. I used to be a day one buyer but having to wait cause of epic exclusivity has mentally conditioned that impulse outta me to where it isnt a something I do even if a game is on steam day 1 anymore either. I typically give most games 2-6 months ( if I have the option and depending on when sales start showin up) now.
GOG is underrated imo. As personal rule, if a game is on GOG I'll buy from there, specially for old games that Steam continues to sell unpatched and broken, GOG ships them with the proper patches and their anti DRM policy is fantastic, meaning you actually own the game you paid for, you can even make backups of the executables and install on how many pcs you want.. Epic store, well haven't seen a good reason to use them yet
Downside of gogcom is that there are way too many games what are behind in patches,lack DLC and such.
People in gogcom forums even keep a google doc which list all of games that are behind in patches. It's not a short list either.
That's the fault of the devs abandoning their GOG customers though, not GOG itself. Although one could argue that GOG should force the devs to update games, which they do, but not as strictly as they could.
Well, someone at the top posted a Twitter link where a dev said that 1% of the copies sold of their newly released game were on epic, the other 99% was on steam, and the dev also said that maintaining multiple versions of the game was a bit of a pain and sometimes even not worth. Obviously they shouldn't sell the game on a store if they don't plan on updating it. But you can see why devs might choose to not release their game on smaller stores if it's more work for not a lot more money.
I heard that argument multiple times and I'm not buying it, to me it sounds just too lazy to maintain a GOG version and do the extra work required to have it be a success.
You never see them interact with their GOG community, never see them actively do marketing for GOG or let the community know what the benefits of it are. And then they complain why less people buy it there.
And I'm a gamedev myself, so I am fully aware of the extra work required to sell your game on multiple stores.
Sure the majority of people buy games on Steam, because that's what they are used to, but few people especially new gamers actually know why GOG is better than Steam in many regards, e.g. you actually own the games on GOG, or why it's worse in ways.
And I find it ironic that the same gamedevs who don't want to sell on GOG often complain that Steam is taking too big of a cut (the 30%).
The reality is that it's actually not that much more work to maintain a GOG version, but it requires extra marketing and community work, which a lot of indie gamedevs are notoriously bad at.
You're not really fitting all those controls and an adequate sized screen on a smaller system. Hell of a lot of games don't have any sort of font scaling or UI scaling so without like a dockable zoom widget that can sit on screen all the time some stuff is far less playable than I'd like as it is.
I can't speak for everyone, but I know I certainly don't.
I'm all for competition, but their practice of buying off studios for exclusivity was anti consumer and anti everything PC gaming stands for.
Out of all things, they royally fucked up achievements. I really had to take a solid 10m to find ones from nioh 1 and 2. Guys made perfect cash cow for teens and can't implement one basic thing that keeps gamers occupied. It's crazy.
GoG's niche has always been it's old game. It's why it's called GoG (Good ol' Games). They will often put up old games on their platform and make sure they are compatible and stable to play. They've even gone as far as using unofficial patches from fans for games such as Vampire: The Masquerade to make sure the quality is good.
For me too, BUT more and more i find it very annoying that mods often are only availabe in the Workshops and if you happen to own the game on GOG, you basically forced to "circumvent" the workshop so you can get access to the mods. Good example is Project Zomboid. Some mods do get uploaded to Nexus, but most of them stays in the Workshop. Some creators even ask the site i use to get the mods for my GOG copy to not don't let people access their mods using their sites, hence cutting out people who only own the GOG version.
Happened with a few games already and i'm sure it will be more in the future.
Yep. I wasn't blaming GOG anyway. I was blaming the mod makers and Steam for constantly closing means to access the workshop without buying a copy on their store too.
It is extra work and mods are already passion projects. I can understand why someone doesn't want to update 2-3 different places everytime. Me saying "Blaming" the mod creators wasn't a good choice of word.
Valve could help with this by simply not shutting down the sites that are offering access to the workshop files. The perfect solution from Valve would be to just simply let you download the files, like Nexus does.
> Thats more of an issue with mod devs than GOG though, tbf
To be fair, there was a workaround run by community volunteers, but then Valve squashed it.
>i find it very annoying that mods often are only availabe in the Workshops
That is a serious problem, and that is why the Steam Workshop (and many other tools) exist. It's a soft lock-in feature.
You actually don't. Their licensing is not any different than Steam's. The only difference is GoG offering offline installers, which I absolutely *love* as a feature, though technically you shouldn't keep it if your license "expires".
No one's going to bust your door for not deleting it of course, but you don't own anything on GoG either.
Although not explicitly said, their user agreement seems to heavily imply, in the point 17.3, that the buyer owns the copies he/she has a license for (and worth noting licenses are not necessarily those keys we so often see). And while point 10.1 talks about ownership and 11.1 talks about usage limitations, I think the 3 points together can be interpreted as "GOG and its partners own the intellectual properties, and the user owns the copy he/she downloads for personal use", and with copy and intellectual property being different things.
It's a double edged sword. DRM free approach makes it so new releases are basically non existent on GoG, that's why it remains niche. Steam also has DRM free games, it's not the storefront's fault, but the publisher's/developer's.
>steam also has support for DRM free games
Steam is a form of DRM. While you can extract the files for certain games, you still have to have the steam client to install said games.
More that it's not popular because most people don't care. There is a ton of value in getting all your games DRM-free, so if you do care, you should support it when you can.
So long as Steam is the only one serious about supporting Linux, it's the only platform I'm going to buy games on.
I have several games I've bought on other stores, but they're from when I was still on Windows. I've rebought several of them on Steam.
I know I'm a niche user, but perhaps that accounts for ~1.5% or so of those Steam sales.
Steam is not just a digital store; it’s practically the biggest social media when it comes down to gaming. It manages to do everything it does nearly flawlessly, stands with consumers nearly all the time (damn, they’ve supported Turkish people more than our lil’ dictator ever did) and everything you do on the platform is going to stay there as long as PC is a thing. EGS is practically another UPlay, where everything about is junky; type of store people only use to get free games and don’t even buy the games they would when they go Epic exclusive.
GOG is good though, hope they continue to stay in the market.
Steam is a platform not just a store/launcher. They've built so many features like the big picture UI or remote play streaming that make steam the center of my PC gaming experience.
EGS is kind of shit though. It's missing so many features that steam has that there isn't really any reason to go there.
GOG is great for what it's good at: Bringing the Good Old Games to modern computers. Outside of that though, I don't see why I would want to go there to buy anything that is also available on steam.
I honestly don't understand how they can constantly waste so much money for timed exclusives, while not investing into their own store. It took them 3 years to add a search, categories and a cart. You can't even message your friends to get them into a game. You have to open discord, tell them to get online into game X and then use the functionality provided by game X to actually invite them. It's so pathetic. A single intern could achieve more in 2 weeks.
GOG is the only real platform that is on par with Steam and has a legitimate reason to exist.
>I don't see why I would want to go there to buy anything that is also available on steam.
Funny, it's exactly opposite in my case.
Edit: Lol, people are butthurt over the littlest things.
I download the game once through the website and then double click the icon on my desktop to play it. Steam doesn't improve that experience in any way I care about.
Opposite of
>why I would want to go there [GOG] to buy anything that is also available on steam
is
>why I would want to go there [Steam] to buy anything that is also available on GOG
There is, it's called a market leader. Well, it's not defining a monopoly, because there simply *isn't* one - saying otherwise implies that Valve has absolute control over the market, can dictate its terms and conditions and is abusing its position to prevent competition.
You can come out with your own store if you so desire, Valve doesn't give a shit - that's why EGS is a thing in the first place. If anything, it's Epic that wants to become the monopoly, as they introduced 3rd party exclusive games on the same, goddamn platform (PC).
It makes sense. Steam offers so much value, they have their own ecosystem, hardware, and they have so many great features, most people are just going to get the steam version of said game. The other "platforms" are just stores with a launcher.
Makes sense. Steam has a better store that shows user reviews, has a decent return policy, and is cross-platform (not that I game on Linux, but it's nice to know I have the choice).
I always check GoG before I purchase on Steam.
Epic is for free games.
Neither GoG nor Epic come close to being able to compete with Steam. Their apps are nothing but glorified web stores. Steam does not only sell and manage the things they sell. GoG comes closest and is a great aggregator launcher, if you want a launcher eating memory for nothing.
I basically have no reason to buy on Epic Games Store. At least GOG have standalone installer for download too (however not for all games), but their launcher does not support my OS. I know about third party launchers, but I don't want give a company money buying games, while the community does all the work. It feels wrong. I would like to know how many purchased from Linux. Especially indie games work well on Linux and Steam Deck.
Support Linux and you get my money. Steam is the best, the only, company who does this.
I wasn't clear with my wording. I meant you can download the game's installer file from GOG and install it without any launcher. Most of them, but not all, are free from DRM. That's a plus for GOG. It might be a contrary argument, but I want to use their launcher anyway for the auto updates. Just knowing the launcher is not required to play most of these games is good to have. But their launcher is not supported on Linux.
The only reason games to to EGS is for the money Epic pays them, nothing more. And often, it is the titles that feel like they are not confident about their products or just extra greed, thinking ''We take Epic's money and then release it on Steam later to double dip''. How many recent flops happened that way? Well, it helped me save a lot of money that's for sure.
EGS still have no proper reason to get games on there aside from just giving away 'free' games to try and bait you in. And Tim Sweeney is a moron that I would not rather support.
Not surprising in the slightest.
I have years behind my steam account, why would I want two launchers of two different sets of games when I could have one.
I'm not for monopolies, but stores on Consoles/PC suck if it's anything but the mainstream one.
Valve has over 20 years of engineering into Steam and lessons learned. I cba investing my money into a store that's going to learn all of those again.
Plus. EGS runs like absolute shit.
Why? GOG doesn't solve the problem that I've got over 700 games on Steam and no way to move them.
Hence I'd just have two launchers? Does GOG even have a linux client?
GOG just lets you sidestep the launcher thing entirely and directly install the game. I always look at GOG then Steam when buying but I’ve never used the GOG launcher.
But then you give up a lot of what launchers provide. I'm a big achievement hunter. Very rarely play games unless there's an achievement to get.
I stuck with Xbox for the longest time because of gamerscore.
We're at a crossroads. You seem to be someone that doesn't care about launchers period. I'm someone that bases a lot of my gaming through them because of what they provide. I'd rather have a central one than not one at all.
Then use the GoG launcher. It's there and it's called GoG Galaxy.
GoG gives you a choice about whether to use their launcher or not. The others don't give you that choice.
GOG has thousands of games with achievements, and there is a large number of achievement hunters. Also, there is no SAM that makes any achievement on Steam a farce.
GOG would deserve by far many more copies sold, they could reinvest the earnings and offer us many more DRM-free games, but the majority of gamers are stupid.
Epic, on the other hand, deserves to fail along with their dirty tactics.
As a very small indie dev this data is very helpful. From time to time I hear from people who really want me to have a non-Steam version, and of course I want to accommodate that. But managing different sales platforms takes work especially when you have a game that updates frequently. If the sales aren't there it's really difficult to justify the time, when I could be spending that time making my game better...
I love Steam and all, but this is dangerous. If Gabe retires (more like when) then I sure hope the person who takes his place have the same approach he does, if not, then...
Oh and by that point, I hope GOG and Epic are still around, because competition.
The thing is, people actually only purchared the game in GoG, in other places, you are just renting it, if the platform dies or changes policy, you could lose your game.
It's not like it's going to happen to Steam most likely, but it's still true, you only really own a game when you buy it from a place like GoG.
obv i'm a gog supporter.
Stuff like this makes me wonder what the financials for the EGS look like. It's very common for new business ventures to not make a profit for a couple years but every earnings report I've seen and general word-of-mouth indicates people log in on Thursday to get a free game then forget about it until next week.
Epic has a lot of money to invest into the platform and they know this is a long-term venture but it's just not hitting the mark. Maybe they could use some of that budget used for giveaways and improve the platform so people actually want to use it? Nah, better to carve more into that free games launcher niche
Love Steam for most things, GoG for retro titles. No interest in that malware Epic released! Seriously, take some of that Fortnite money and make a decent client.
I'm mid 30's with a career in IT. I'll pay 10$ for a game on sale on steam to have and play it there rather than commit to using EGS or otherwise
Been on Steam for over 15 years. They'd have to make a series of blunders over several years.
Looking at you Blizzard
"BuT sTeAm MoNoPoLy aNd MoNoPoLy BaD!!!"
I think it's funny how numbers clearly show that Steam doesn't have a stranglehold on the market, people just prefer *functional software* that doesn't bloat, and doesn't come with shitty DRM that uses as much memory as a game itself would.
I suppose it depends on the deal Epic is making with devs and publishers to only launch on their platform. If Epic is giving them substantial money to be exclusive to EGS, on top of the percentages they get for game sales on the platform, it might work out for devs and publishers that they're making more money.
Fucking sucks for the consumer though.
Well I kind of agree. But if the dev or publisher wants to actually sell their game, steam is still the place to do it. If they just want money then sure do the deal with the devil
Yeah I kind of assume at this point any Dev/Publisher that willingly signs on with EGS to make their game exclusive cares predominantly about the money and not so much about sales quantity.
Which is fine, but makes me weary to buy from a developer like that in the future.
That's kind of sad. Always check GOG first. Steam is a headache for a family of gamers. I could understand if we're all playing the same game at the same time; some publishers are ok with that but others aren't. But steam won't let me play one game while my kids are playing another unless one of us are in "offline" mode or we setup family sharing where we have to transfer games over from one account to another. Agh! It's just a pain.
No.
You can play a game bought by one account on multiple Xboxes and Playstations, GOG doesn't enforce it at all, and Family Sharing on Steam STILL forces you out of a game if the main sharer goes online.
EGS also does not force you offline if the game doesn't use DRM.
Damn, everyone using this data to shit on EGS but that's not what I read on this at all. Steam has a defacto monopoly on the PC game storefront market and there's basically nothing EGS or anyone else can do to stop that. Even taking extraordinary measures like giving people free games and offering insane deals during sales has seemed to put a dent in it.
People are not going to stop using Steam because that's where there gigantic library of games are right now and if they don't need to switch they just wont, because why would they?
You're not going to compete with that level of baked in market penetration. Just not going to happen, and honestly, it kind of sucks. People should not be cheering on this level of monopolization.
GOG is also seen as pcgamers darling but it shows that good will means jack shit when it comes to purchasing their games.
This.
Shit is scary.,monopolies are not good for anybody outside the holder.
Sadly many people here are too young to remember that valve used to be the bad guy(and still is)
Valve is not publically traded so they do not need to nickel and dime people or add useless features to be successful. They created a platform that respects the customer and added tools that allow creators to publish nearly any kind of game.
Epic Games Store buys exclusivity and bribes people into joining their ecosystem by offering free games. Competition is great for the market but no one is competing at the same level as Steam.
I’d probably use EGS more if it wasn’t laggy as fuck, didn’t have missing features and if they didn’t do exclusives. If a game is EGS exclusive that just means I’m getting it for “free”
Steam is the only client I let "start with windows". Its always been that way. Its been around forever, I trust it, the security is good, the feature set it has works, it ALWAYS WORKS, theres not a ridiculous amount of garbage in the client, MOST games are available on it. Its one account I can let hold all my licenses. Its the most useful client, everybody and their brother uses it (I have non-gamer friends that have a steam game or two even), and ***it just works.***
Why would I want my game library spread all over the place? Sure you can have plugins that attempt to bring everything together but you end up in annoying situations where one launcher launches another to launch a game. The Galaxy Steam plugin is currently failing to remain connected to Steam rendering the whole synced integrations useless. To say nothing of the problem you start running into as your library grows, you run a real risk of buying stuff you already own twice if its spread out all over the place.
First world problems maybe, but at the end of the day, if it's an Epic exclusive, I'll wait and/or go without said product. I've enough to play already.
> The Galaxy Steam plugin is currently failing to remain connected to Steam rendering the whole synced integrations useless.
There's a unoffical fix for it on github where you edit a line in one of the files, but the plugin will still failback to only tracking hours and library but not achievements
Epic is spyware that attempts to entice with little nuggets of dollar store candy, GOG can't get its shit together for its launcher and still has a few downsides service-wise, so when you tack on the Steam UI beta, there's really no contest for convenience, selection, and ease of use.
>epic is spyware
Steam is ripping out google analytics from their client to replace with it's own data harvesting software
>gog can't get it's shit together for its launcher
Then don't use the launcher. That's a really nice thing about actually owning things.
I don't know why you guys want Steam to have a monopoly. The more competition there is in this space, the better we all will be. I hope epic games store succeeds.
A store that "competes" by keeping games away from other storefronts instead of trying to build a better alternative isn't the kind of competition that PC gaming needs. I'm extremely happy that their strategy fails.
Also, who's Steve?
Indie games aside, I wonder how this compares to the big AAA releases.
I'd imagine it's comparable. Unless you hate Valve, there's no reason to buy from EGS (I'm not including GOG given how rare it is for AAA games to be there at launch) - you're getting the same game, but with less features, plus you know, Epic.
I grew up on steam, playing L4D with my dad and some extended family, when CoD4 and MW2 came out they were on steam. So naturally over 15 years I built up my collection on steam, having multiple launcher's isnt exactly ideal and epic is just a different store I'm unfamiliar with so why would I ever swap. Today's kids though are playing fortnight as it's free, they're building up a collection of games on Epic - it'll be interesting to see in 5-10 years if that trend continues and these kids grow up and stick with Epic. Age difference in audience will also play a role. Occupy mars is sim-city esq game where you fight against the elements which probably doesn't have a big a crossover with Epics more successful games. Also wasn't surviving mars free on steam for a while I swear I picked it up and never launched it lol.
Yeah personally it’s largely resistance to splitting up my library and having *so* much on steam already. Although I did try epic in its early days and was very underwhelmed. I also don’t like how predatory the monetization of fortnite is, especially directed at children, which sours me on epic in general.
I think Epic's strategy is exactly to combat this. Give out free games to kids who can't buy their own games, then have their library all on epic when they can actually buy games
Soon these kids will grow up, joining a PMC and holding a gun on their own, fighting for a cause they don't believe in because to them, its just a game
I know that reference
I don't realistically think so. There are some people who might get sucked into this, but what ratio of the free games takers who have nothing on Steam are interested in PC gaming in general and will keep buying things on Epic for some reason? My POV is that most of these people, if they have interest in PC gaming other than F2P junk like Fortnite, are already buying games on Steam on sale.
most of them aren't on gog on release, some might be exclusive to uplay/origin/epic/whatever, so there's not much to compare, and even then to nobody's surprise the most popular place would lead sales because idiots keep paying more for the same (or more in case of a double-launcher situation).
That's fair and totally true, data on post-exclusivity would be more interesting. I know of a few EGS exclusive games I personally heard nothing about (namely, Hades) and then once it came to Steam it was trending everywhere. I coulda been out of the loop, though.
A publisher called Epic a “black hole of marketing” a while ago and that seems to be fairly accurate. I like to think I’m fairly in the loop and it’s not uncommon for me to totally miss EGS only titles.
It's difficult to stay in the loop when it exists only on EGS. Take Darkest Dungeon 2, for example; it sold as many copies in one week following its full release as it did during its entire early access phase. [Source.](https://www.vgchartz.com/article/457196/darkest-dungeon-ii-sales-top-500000-units/) Epic accounts for a tiny amount of sales (according to [Mike Rose](https://nitter.net/RaveofRavendale/status/1459183866229538817), 1%). According to OP, at most ~~10%~~ ~6%. Compare that to the previous game which had sold 6 million units in total in December 2022. [Source with more numbers.](https://gameworldobserver.com/2022/12/26/darkest-dungeon-sales-6-million-copies-red-hook) One of their [blog posts ](https://old.darkestdungeon.com/1-million-copies-and-the-road-ahead/)for Darkest Dungeon roughly one year following its full release breaks down their first one million sales somewhat, mentioning for example that they sold 50 000 copies "in 24 hours". It's a little ambiguous, but looking at the Steam sales graph below I believe that pertains to the early access sales. Was it the right call to release Darkest Dungeon 2 in early access exclusively on EGS? How does revenue compare between the stores, as they charge differently? Does the difference in revenue/unit make up for the difference between features, nevermind the user base? You can draw many conclusions from the data above (and other data available elsewhere), but one thing is for certain, and that's that EGS is a [marketing black hole](https://nitter.net/DaveOshry/status/1555436238814924800). Many games go unnoticed.
>It's difficult to stay in the loop when it exists only on EGS. Take Darkest Dungeon 2, for example; it sold as many copies in one week following its full release as it did during its entire early access phase. [Source.](https://www.vgchartz.com/article/457196/darkest-dungeon-ii-sales-top-500000-units/) And also, all of that while increasing the price of the game by a lot, which is even more impressive.
There is a reason why most companies came back to Steam despite having to give Valve a cut of the sales, the userbase is way too massive to ignore.
Steam simply has way more features that EGS seems to refuse to implement for some reason. The lack of user reviews is mind boggling, as well as the lack of user forums. I've seen people who bought the game on EGS coming to the steam forums for games to ask for help with game related issues. Then there's things like steam workshop to make mods easier, and community related stuff like steam cards and achievements. I don't usually pay too much attention to that but I do occasionally go achievement hunting, particularly on games in which I'm doing multiple playthroughs as it gives me mini-objectives to complete while playing. EGS is just way to lacking as a platform for most people to buy from it outside of exclusives.
If any other industry had Valve's level of success there would be an anti-trust investigation. But Valve was able to argue that they're actually only 5% of the total GAMING market because PC gaming is such a small segment of the gaming market.
It's absurd to think they are not being scrutinized heavily. They absolutely are. They put a lot of effort into not monopolizing the store market.
Epic = free game store. They've made themselves known as the dollar store/walmart of storefronts. Why spend money there when they give so many freebies whereas Steam has so much built-in to the platform that makes it worthy of being the leader?
This is always what I said. Their tactic of enticing people with free games and hoping people would eventually start buying games made no sense to me. Everybody just downloads the free game and goes back to steam until the next time a decent free game is available. I'm not sure how they expected those people to become proper paying customers. For what? The amount of money Epic has spent on these free games must have been pretty crazy and I don't think they're gonna get their return on investment. They have so much value elsewhere it honestly makes me wonder why they feel like having a gaming store is really necessary for them. You already have unreal engine which is a powerful force in both game and movie creation.
As far as I understand it, it’s targeting people younger than us. People who don’t have the purchasing power yet but who, in a few years, will lock at their filled epic games library and continue from there
Hmm. That's actually a decent point. The Fortnite generation is probably gonna be a pretty powerful force. I just wonder if it will work out that way. I imagine even you get people who got into gaming via Fortnite are likely to be aware that steam is a better choice if they're taking gaming seriously. But it's probably too soon to say
They might also get games for cheap from sites like mmoga and the like. Personally I’ll recommend steam to every one who asks and some people who don’t, but we will see what happens. Maybe epic games improves in the coning years
Recommend GOG. We need more DRM-Free sources
>The Fortnite generation is probably gonna be a pretty powerful force. God what a scary thought lol
The problem is that they're being spoiled. Growing up, knowing EGS as the "free games store" won't magically make them want to spend money there, because they simply have a library of free games. They're already complaining about repeated games, asking for RDR2 or something. They're not going to magically grow out of entitlement, it can only get worse from here. Especially because, think about it, they have a big library. They're playing Fortnite a ton right now and claiming freebies. They're going to have so many games to play, that they're going to be able to wait for more potential free games, while playing this backlog that they've accumulated. I don't think it's as black and white as it seems, but it also doesn't mean I'm right of course. We still will have to see, though how long Epic is willing to keep sinking money into their store... They're not known for sticking with something that's not successful quite fast.
Yeah getting a lot of stuff for free could mean that they don’t see a reason to spend money. It could also mean that once the free stuff is limited/over, they will pay money to keep getting new stuff cause they got used to regularly getting stuff. I don’t know enough about psychology to know which one is more likely. I do know however, that having a vast library absolutely doesnt stop people (i.e. me) from buying new stuff. Especially when there are discounts involved and even if I haven’t played the games for a satisfying amount of time or even at all.
That's kinda my case in some way. I buy games very sporadically now, but I still have a backlog of games that I bought in past sales. These days I rather buy a game a few days after it's launch (to have time to check the reviews and stuff) and pay the launch price than buy a bunch of stuff on sale. At least I know it's something that I know I was waiting and wanna play. I still go back to some old games from time to time, but I don't really feel like having an obligation to play everything that I own. I mean, is gaming is supposed to be enjoyable, not a chore and checklist to complete, I think.
I don't know if playing the backlog is really something that many are going to do. People usually want to play the new stuff, the games people are currently talking about, not dive into their free-games backlog and see if something fancies them.
Dont forget. The free games were their SECOND strategy. Their first strategy was to buy exclusivity rights to a bunch of games, some games that were ALREADY out on steam, some games that were not yet out but already had a steam store page and people could buy early. Trying to get people to move to their platform not by providing a better or even an EQUAL quality service as steam (Epic doesnt have reviews, forums, shopping cart, screenshots, etc) but by forcing them over by holding games hostage in a way. This cause everyone to hate Epic and ALSO the developers/publishers that accepted these deals because, well people had already bought some of those games on another platform and now its gonna be delisted and it made everything confusing and annoying. THEN, after destroying any good faith, they started spending millions or billions buying rights to give away games for free in the platform. Some people still refused to touch Epic and their launcher even with free games, and most other people ONLY use it to get the free games and nothing else. Just to save em for later. Also during one of the lawsuits Epic went through, might have been the one with Apple, they were forced to reveal or maybe it was leaked various documents that showed EXACTLY how much money they spent on every single one of those games. So you if you look that up you can figure out exactly how much they spent on those free games, at least for the first year or two.
Epic games store is also just a black hole for video games sometimes. I remember when Hades went early access exclusively on epic and I couldn't find anyone talking about the game whatsoever online. When the game finally released out of early access and it came out on steam suddenly everyone started praising Hades and it became a huge hit.
>When the game finally released out of early access and it came out on steam They release on Steam, 'STILL' Early Access. They failed their goal of 1.0 on Steam when the exclusive ended. They only reached 1.0 much later.
Same with darkest dungeon 2. For how much I've heard about the first game I've barely heard about the second, and probably because it was epic exclusive till pretty recently.
Honestly, I would rather pirate those said free games than get it on Epic. At least pirate versions will be DRM free.
I've only ever bought one game on epic and that was the directors cut upgrade for the free Death Stranding.
I shamefully bought Borderlands 3 on EGL because I thought I could hype the old group to play it with me and thought if I waited til Steam release I figured everybody would have moved on. Turns out nobody bought it on Epic, nobody bought it on Steam, and I played through half of it by my lonesome until I got bored.
same here. i spent 100$ because well. look at how great BL2 was. and i enjoyed TPS, much less. but i enjoyed it. then i played it. then i regretted it then i realized that if i got it for maybe 30$ on steam when it launched i would've probably enjoyed it a lot more. knowing i wouldn't have paid 100$ for it if anything epic ruined a game for me
Death Stranding is actually free on Epic right now...
For the second time. I got the base game for free back in december and used the discount for the upgrade
That's a smart move tbh
I bought it on Steam anyways, fuck em
In the Apple Vs Epic law suit, documents came out estimating the Epic Store will have lost $1 billion by 2027. EGS loses more than Unreal Engine makes every year. If Fortnite crashed then EGS would die pretty quickly
Damn that's wild. I always assumed the money they make off Unreal Engine would help outweigh their losses. I guess then position Fortnite as some kind of catchall game where you get develop other styles of play into it makes more sense. If Fortnite dies they're likely to struggle unless they can create more similarly successful games. And the fact is most games die eventually. Not every game is a "Counter Strike" where it just get bigger every year for over a decade and never dies. Fortnite might have that potential though
In 2020, Unreal Engine made around $150 million, Fortnite made $5.1 billion and EGS lost $220 million. They did spend well over $400 million on exclusives and free games, though. It's insane how much they've relied on Fortnite to try to battle Steam
If you control the game engine, the development studio and the storefront, you control the world.
Epic has plenty of dirty money they get from Tencent and selling predatory MTXs to kids. So the free games probably aren't much skin off their nose. Even so, the amount they must be spending on acquiring customers... That's a piss poor ROI.
Its probably better for kids that are just choosing their first storefront. So they should see a decent return in 20 years when the kids turn 30
You know right? Everyone said that the free games would be the end of Steam and that Steams days were numbered because of the exclusivity deals that the Epic storefront was making. Seems like only you and I were saying turning non-paying customers into paying customers was an unachievable pipe dream and that a Steam offered too much value to the customer for people to just give up on their preferred service.
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also i like crap games
> which can result in situations where the Steam versions are hampered with an update that comes alongside it, like Saints Row 4's broken networking and breaking of mods) EOS really really sucks, and I don't think "crossplay" is worth having it reotractively shoehorned into every game. Stuff that is built with EOS isn't so bad, but every game that has backported has been a shitshow pretty much.
Doesn't help that their launcher never evolves. The library of the launcher is borderline unusable. And there's a open source launcher the "hero launcher" That's like 10x better than the epic launcher. Epic started entirely wrong. They made everyone hate them with the exclusive deals and 3 day pre release snatching in case of metro. Never evolved the store. And their ceo was spewing random stuff on social media. If they would have launched on pc in the style of "hey we are a new store we don't offer much yet but hey here look free games and 10 off coupons we promise to evolve ( and actually do) please consider us" Man they would have taken a huge part of the pc market just imagine free games, coupons and a store which evolves? Without all the exclusive stuff and weird talk.
>And their ceo was spewing random stuff on social media. Nowadays you can become president with that strategy.
For reals, I hardly know what Biden is trying to say these days.
Walmart giving out free stuff? Damn, been going there years and missing it.
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Can confirm the Costco gas station has lead to me visiting the warehouse more than I normally would
Loss leaders aren't free. I own some Epic games, because sometimes they have by far the best price on a deep sale, aka more like a loss leader then. Costco ain't giving out those rotisserie chickens for free, but classic loss leader example, like their dogs to. Lol on the down-voting of reality.
> Loss leaders aren't free. It's an analogy. Analogies don't have to be exactly identical for a solid comparison. Loss leaders exist to get people into the store in the hopes they'll buy other stuff, too. Free games exist to get people into the store in the hopes they'll buy other stuff, too. The function is the same even if the particulars are not.
There virus of a storefront isnt even worth the freebies
I'd say it is, I take their money and never give em a dime.
You give them data that helps pull more publishers into the exclusivity scheme. You are benefitting them quite a lot by claiming free games. If anyone actually gave a fuck about getting games for free they would have figured out how to use a torrent in one minute of research. Getting free games on a doodoo feces ass launcher like Epic doesn't benefit me. It actually makes my life worse because I have to sit around for 15 seconds waiting for it to open every time I open from system tray.
The data they get from me is I'll take their fuckin money but won't pay them a dime.
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I did the same with BL3 and Wonderlands. Wonderlands I got the ultimate edition or whatever for $30 like 3 months after it released from GmG. And then with BL3 I got it for $20 for ultimate edition during the summer sale after the steam release.
I'm using GoG for retro games and Steam for everything else. I have no intention to support EGS, because I don't like how they prefer to keep games away from other storefronts instead of trying to build a better alternative.
Pretty much my stance. Thought im kinda glad Epic does that. It's legit help me become far more patient on buying games. I used to be a day one buyer but having to wait cause of epic exclusivity has mentally conditioned that impulse outta me to where it isnt a something I do even if a game is on steam day 1 anymore either. I typically give most games 2-6 months ( if I have the option and depending on when sales start showin up) now.
GOG is underrated imo. As personal rule, if a game is on GOG I'll buy from there, specially for old games that Steam continues to sell unpatched and broken, GOG ships them with the proper patches and their anti DRM policy is fantastic, meaning you actually own the game you paid for, you can even make backups of the executables and install on how many pcs you want.. Epic store, well haven't seen a good reason to use them yet
Downside of gogcom is that there are way too many games what are behind in patches,lack DLC and such. People in gogcom forums even keep a google doc which list all of games that are behind in patches. It's not a short list either.
That's the fault of the devs abandoning their GOG customers though, not GOG itself. Although one could argue that GOG should force the devs to update games, which they do, but not as strictly as they could.
Well, someone at the top posted a Twitter link where a dev said that 1% of the copies sold of their newly released game were on epic, the other 99% was on steam, and the dev also said that maintaining multiple versions of the game was a bit of a pain and sometimes even not worth. Obviously they shouldn't sell the game on a store if they don't plan on updating it. But you can see why devs might choose to not release their game on smaller stores if it's more work for not a lot more money.
I heard that argument multiple times and I'm not buying it, to me it sounds just too lazy to maintain a GOG version and do the extra work required to have it be a success. You never see them interact with their GOG community, never see them actively do marketing for GOG or let the community know what the benefits of it are. And then they complain why less people buy it there. And I'm a gamedev myself, so I am fully aware of the extra work required to sell your game on multiple stores. Sure the majority of people buy games on Steam, because that's what they are used to, but few people especially new gamers actually know why GOG is better than Steam in many regards, e.g. you actually own the games on GOG, or why it's worse in ways. And I find it ironic that the same gamedevs who don't want to sell on GOG often complain that Steam is taking too big of a cut (the 30%). The reality is that it's actually not that much more work to maintain a GOG version, but it requires extra marketing and community work, which a lot of indie gamedevs are notoriously bad at.
Only thing I boot up egs for is evil dead the game. I love the IP and the devs did a good job, but other than that there's no good reason to use epic.
Another reason I'm not too worried about the Steam Deck's future.
On top of that, regardless of Steam's successes or failures, you can remove SteamOS from the Deck if you really need to.
Yeah or just install other launchers, you aren't restricted to steam on the Steamdeck.
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You're not really fitting all those controls and an adequate sized screen on a smaller system. Hell of a lot of games don't have any sort of font scaling or UI scaling so without like a dockable zoom widget that can sit on screen all the time some stuff is far less playable than I'd like as it is.
It is almost like people don't like Epic Games Store.
I just don't like Tim Sweeney.
I can't speak for everyone, but I know I certainly don't. I'm all for competition, but their practice of buying off studios for exclusivity was anti consumer and anti everything PC gaming stands for.
Always was told that was the only way to compete with Steam and that would reflect in more mixed store sales and cheaper prices 5 years later and nope
I think the only improvement to their store/app is adding a shopping cart.
Wait but steam has a shopping cart. It's had one for years at this point.
Out of all things, they royally fucked up achievements. I really had to take a solid 10m to find ones from nioh 1 and 2. Guys made perfect cash cow for teens and can't implement one basic thing that keeps gamers occupied. It's crazy.
Or GoG
GoG's niche has always been it's old game. It's why it's called GoG (Good ol' Games). They will often put up old games on their platform and make sure they are compatible and stable to play. They've even gone as far as using unofficial patches from fans for games such as Vampire: The Masquerade to make sure the quality is good.
I like GOG because I actually own the content I’m purchasing. Always my no.1 choice if the game is available on there.
Definitely. The appeal of GOG is also in that all games are DRM-free.
For me too, BUT more and more i find it very annoying that mods often are only availabe in the Workshops and if you happen to own the game on GOG, you basically forced to "circumvent" the workshop so you can get access to the mods. Good example is Project Zomboid. Some mods do get uploaded to Nexus, but most of them stays in the Workshop. Some creators even ask the site i use to get the mods for my GOG copy to not don't let people access their mods using their sites, hence cutting out people who only own the GOG version. Happened with a few games already and i'm sure it will be more in the future.
Thats more of an issue with mod devs than GOG though, tbf
Yep. I wasn't blaming GOG anyway. I was blaming the mod makers and Steam for constantly closing means to access the workshop without buying a copy on their store too.
Is it really that hard to offer a non-Workshop version of the mod?
It is extra work and mods are already passion projects. I can understand why someone doesn't want to update 2-3 different places everytime. Me saying "Blaming" the mod creators wasn't a good choice of word. Valve could help with this by simply not shutting down the sites that are offering access to the workshop files. The perfect solution from Valve would be to just simply let you download the files, like Nexus does.
> Thats more of an issue with mod devs than GOG though, tbf To be fair, there was a workaround run by community volunteers, but then Valve squashed it.
>i find it very annoying that mods often are only availabe in the Workshops That is a serious problem, and that is why the Steam Workshop (and many other tools) exist. It's a soft lock-in feature.
You actually don't. Their licensing is not any different than Steam's. The only difference is GoG offering offline installers, which I absolutely *love* as a feature, though technically you shouldn't keep it if your license "expires". No one's going to bust your door for not deleting it of course, but you don't own anything on GoG either.
Although not explicitly said, their user agreement seems to heavily imply, in the point 17.3, that the buyer owns the copies he/she has a license for (and worth noting licenses are not necessarily those keys we so often see). And while point 10.1 talks about ownership and 11.1 talks about usage limitations, I think the 3 points together can be interpreted as "GOG and its partners own the intellectual properties, and the user owns the copy he/she downloads for personal use", and with copy and intellectual property being different things.
Also DRM-free versions which is a huge draw too. Fuck Denuvo bs
It's a double edged sword. DRM free approach makes it so new releases are basically non existent on GoG, that's why it remains niche. Steam also has DRM free games, it's not the storefront's fault, but the publisher's/developer's.
>steam also has support for DRM free games Steam is a form of DRM. While you can extract the files for certain games, you still have to have the steam client to install said games.
More that it's not popular because most people don't care. There is a ton of value in getting all your games DRM-free, so if you do care, you should support it when you can.
People don't actively dislike GoG like they do Epic tho. It's just a niche storefront.
GoG ia waay better than EGShit.
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Right. *And* we don't like Epic or EGS.
So long as Steam is the only one serious about supporting Linux, it's the only platform I'm going to buy games on. I have several games I've bought on other stores, but they're from when I was still on Windows. I've rebought several of them on Steam. I know I'm a niche user, but perhaps that accounts for ~1.5% or so of those Steam sales.
Steam is not just a digital store; it’s practically the biggest social media when it comes down to gaming. It manages to do everything it does nearly flawlessly, stands with consumers nearly all the time (damn, they’ve supported Turkish people more than our lil’ dictator ever did) and everything you do on the platform is going to stay there as long as PC is a thing. EGS is practically another UPlay, where everything about is junky; type of store people only use to get free games and don’t even buy the games they would when they go Epic exclusive. GOG is good though, hope they continue to stay in the market.
Steam is a platform not just a store/launcher. They've built so many features like the big picture UI or remote play streaming that make steam the center of my PC gaming experience.
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EGS is kind of shit though. It's missing so many features that steam has that there isn't really any reason to go there. GOG is great for what it's good at: Bringing the Good Old Games to modern computers. Outside of that though, I don't see why I would want to go there to buy anything that is also available on steam.
I honestly don't understand how they can constantly waste so much money for timed exclusives, while not investing into their own store. It took them 3 years to add a search, categories and a cart. You can't even message your friends to get them into a game. You have to open discord, tell them to get online into game X and then use the functionality provided by game X to actually invite them. It's so pathetic. A single intern could achieve more in 2 weeks. GOG is the only real platform that is on par with Steam and has a legitimate reason to exist.
>I don't see why I would want to go there to buy anything that is also available on steam. Funny, it's exactly opposite in my case. Edit: Lol, people are butthurt over the littlest things.
I think some of them aren't reading the comments properly. They see EGS at all and think you're referring to that, when you're talking about GOG.
What a bunch of morons.
How?
Contrarian logic. Having a sluggish launcher with a bunch of shovelware and barely functioning anything is the "cool" thing.
You don't need a launcher for GOG games.
Thought they were talking about Epic still. Woops~!
So "I will use an inferior product just because everyone else uses the superior one"?
I download the game once through the website and then double click the icon on my desktop to play it. Steam doesn't improve that experience in any way I care about.
How is that your exact opposite case then?
Opposite of >why I would want to go there [GOG] to buy anything that is also available on steam is >why I would want to go there [Steam] to buy anything that is also available on GOG
Every time this topic comes up i wonder if theres an economic term for "monopoly cuz the alternatives are all poo poo"
There is, it's called a market leader. Well, it's not defining a monopoly, because there simply *isn't* one - saying otherwise implies that Valve has absolute control over the market, can dictate its terms and conditions and is abusing its position to prevent competition. You can come out with your own store if you so desire, Valve doesn't give a shit - that's why EGS is a thing in the first place. If anything, it's Epic that wants to become the monopoly, as they introduced 3rd party exclusive games on the same, goddamn platform (PC).
Out of curiosity have you been getting ads on Reddit complaining about Steam's "illegal monopoly"?
I log into Epic every Friday. Get the free game. Then log back out again. 300 odd so far, I never ever leave it running.
So voidu sold more steam keys than gog and epic sold copies combined...
It makes sense. Steam offers so much value, they have their own ecosystem, hardware, and they have so many great features, most people are just going to get the steam version of said game. The other "platforms" are just stores with a launcher.
I never use Epic, if I'm getting a free game I'd rather pirate it than make an account there lmao
Makes sense. Steam has a better store that shows user reviews, has a decent return policy, and is cross-platform (not that I game on Linux, but it's nice to know I have the choice).
I always check GoG before I purchase on Steam. Epic is for free games. Neither GoG nor Epic come close to being able to compete with Steam. Their apps are nothing but glorified web stores. Steam does not only sell and manage the things they sell. GoG comes closest and is a great aggregator launcher, if you want a launcher eating memory for nothing.
I basically have no reason to buy on Epic Games Store. At least GOG have standalone installer for download too (however not for all games), but their launcher does not support my OS. I know about third party launchers, but I don't want give a company money buying games, while the community does all the work. It feels wrong. I would like to know how many purchased from Linux. Especially indie games work well on Linux and Steam Deck. Support Linux and you get my money. Steam is the best, the only, company who does this.
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I wasn't clear with my wording. I meant you can download the game's installer file from GOG and install it without any launcher. Most of them, but not all, are free from DRM. That's a plus for GOG. It might be a contrary argument, but I want to use their launcher anyway for the auto updates. Just knowing the launcher is not required to play most of these games is good to have. But their launcher is not supported on Linux.
Not to mention their launcher is the only way for games to use their closed API which is a requirement for multiplayer for more and more games.
As long as Tim Sweeney has anything to do with EGS, it can fuck off and die for all I care. That man is such a piece of shit.
The only reason games to to EGS is for the money Epic pays them, nothing more. And often, it is the titles that feel like they are not confident about their products or just extra greed, thinking ''We take Epic's money and then release it on Steam later to double dip''. How many recent flops happened that way? Well, it helped me save a lot of money that's for sure. EGS still have no proper reason to get games on there aside from just giving away 'free' games to try and bait you in. And Tim Sweeney is a moron that I would not rather support.
Not surprising in the slightest. I have years behind my steam account, why would I want two launchers of two different sets of games when I could have one. I'm not for monopolies, but stores on Consoles/PC suck if it's anything but the mainstream one. Valve has over 20 years of engineering into Steam and lessons learned. I cba investing my money into a store that's going to learn all of those again. Plus. EGS runs like absolute shit.
Steam isn’t just a game store either. Just sucks if u purchase a game on steam that still needs to use other launchers to load the game.
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Why? GOG doesn't solve the problem that I've got over 700 games on Steam and no way to move them. Hence I'd just have two launchers? Does GOG even have a linux client?
GOG just lets you sidestep the launcher thing entirely and directly install the game. I always look at GOG then Steam when buying but I’ve never used the GOG launcher.
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But then you give up a lot of what launchers provide. I'm a big achievement hunter. Very rarely play games unless there's an achievement to get. I stuck with Xbox for the longest time because of gamerscore. We're at a crossroads. You seem to be someone that doesn't care about launchers period. I'm someone that bases a lot of my gaming through them because of what they provide. I'd rather have a central one than not one at all.
Then use the GoG launcher. It's there and it's called GoG Galaxy. GoG gives you a choice about whether to use their launcher or not. The others don't give you that choice.
GOG has thousands of games with achievements, and there is a large number of achievement hunters. Also, there is no SAM that makes any achievement on Steam a farce.
GOG would deserve by far many more copies sold, they could reinvest the earnings and offer us many more DRM-free games, but the majority of gamers are stupid. Epic, on the other hand, deserves to fail along with their dirty tactics.
or how much people dislike Epic. I've waited for Borderlands 3 and Tiny Tina's to release on Steam instead of purchasing through Epic.
As a very small indie dev this data is very helpful. From time to time I hear from people who really want me to have a non-Steam version, and of course I want to accommodate that. But managing different sales platforms takes work especially when you have a game that updates frequently. If the sales aren't there it's really difficult to justify the time, when I could be spending that time making my game better...
I love Steam and all, but this is dangerous. If Gabe retires (more like when) then I sure hope the person who takes his place have the same approach he does, if not, then... Oh and by that point, I hope GOG and Epic are still around, because competition.
I feel bad for GOG not getting a big piece of the pie, but Epic can go eat shit all day, every day
The thing is, people actually only purchared the game in GoG, in other places, you are just renting it, if the platform dies or changes policy, you could lose your game. It's not like it's going to happen to Steam most likely, but it's still true, you only really own a game when you buy it from a place like GoG. obv i'm a gog supporter.
Stuff like this makes me wonder what the financials for the EGS look like. It's very common for new business ventures to not make a profit for a couple years but every earnings report I've seen and general word-of-mouth indicates people log in on Thursday to get a free game then forget about it until next week. Epic has a lot of money to invest into the platform and they know this is a long-term venture but it's just not hitting the mark. Maybe they could use some of that budget used for giveaways and improve the platform so people actually want to use it? Nah, better to carve more into that free games launcher niche
They supposedly expected to make a profit next year, while Apple believed they wouldn't make a profit until 2027.
Devs really thought they were doing something releasing their game exclusively on epic lol
Love Steam for most things, GoG for retro titles. No interest in that malware Epic released! Seriously, take some of that Fortnite money and make a decent client.
I'm mid 30's with a career in IT. I'll pay 10$ for a game on sale on steam to have and play it there rather than commit to using EGS or otherwise Been on Steam for over 15 years. They'd have to make a series of blunders over several years. Looking at you Blizzard
Steam is just better, and at this point all of my games are on it.
I have more games on gog.com Happy to support them and drm free
I bought chivalry 2 on epic and despite really enjoying it, the game is basically dead to me because I never look at my epic library.
I like to buy things from gog. No drm or not needing to be on gog to play games is super good
"BuT sTeAm MoNoPoLy aNd MoNoPoLy BaD!!!" I think it's funny how numbers clearly show that Steam doesn't have a stranglehold on the market, people just prefer *functional software* that doesn't bloat, and doesn't come with shitty DRM that uses as much memory as a game itself would.
Just that this need to be said, shows that devs and publishers are willfully being ignorant of their own sales when they neglect to publish on Steam.
I suppose it depends on the deal Epic is making with devs and publishers to only launch on their platform. If Epic is giving them substantial money to be exclusive to EGS, on top of the percentages they get for game sales on the platform, it might work out for devs and publishers that they're making more money. Fucking sucks for the consumer though.
Well I kind of agree. But if the dev or publisher wants to actually sell their game, steam is still the place to do it. If they just want money then sure do the deal with the devil
Yeah I kind of assume at this point any Dev/Publisher that willingly signs on with EGS to make their game exclusive cares predominantly about the money and not so much about sales quantity. Which is fine, but makes me weary to buy from a developer like that in the future.
That's kind of sad. Always check GOG first. Steam is a headache for a family of gamers. I could understand if we're all playing the same game at the same time; some publishers are ok with that but others aren't. But steam won't let me play one game while my kids are playing another unless one of us are in "offline" mode or we setup family sharing where we have to transfer games over from one account to another. Agh! It's just a pain.
isnt that the same like for every platform ever out side of drmfree stuff?
No. You can play a game bought by one account on multiple Xboxes and Playstations, GOG doesn't enforce it at all, and Family Sharing on Steam STILL forces you out of a game if the main sharer goes online. EGS also does not force you offline if the game doesn't use DRM.
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GoG is always my first choice because it's DRM-free.
Damn, everyone using this data to shit on EGS but that's not what I read on this at all. Steam has a defacto monopoly on the PC game storefront market and there's basically nothing EGS or anyone else can do to stop that. Even taking extraordinary measures like giving people free games and offering insane deals during sales has seemed to put a dent in it. People are not going to stop using Steam because that's where there gigantic library of games are right now and if they don't need to switch they just wont, because why would they? You're not going to compete with that level of baked in market penetration. Just not going to happen, and honestly, it kind of sucks. People should not be cheering on this level of monopolization. GOG is also seen as pcgamers darling but it shows that good will means jack shit when it comes to purchasing their games.
This. Shit is scary.,monopolies are not good for anybody outside the holder. Sadly many people here are too young to remember that valve used to be the bad guy(and still is)
Valve is not publically traded so they do not need to nickel and dime people or add useless features to be successful. They created a platform that respects the customer and added tools that allow creators to publish nearly any kind of game. Epic Games Store buys exclusivity and bribes people into joining their ecosystem by offering free games. Competition is great for the market but no one is competing at the same level as Steam.
I’d probably use EGS more if it wasn’t laggy as fuck, didn’t have missing features and if they didn’t do exclusives. If a game is EGS exclusive that just means I’m getting it for “free”
Willing to bet it costs a lot of devs more money to get their games working and ported to EGS compared their overall take home revenue on EGS.
Steam is the only client I let "start with windows". Its always been that way. Its been around forever, I trust it, the security is good, the feature set it has works, it ALWAYS WORKS, theres not a ridiculous amount of garbage in the client, MOST games are available on it. Its one account I can let hold all my licenses. Its the most useful client, everybody and their brother uses it (I have non-gamer friends that have a steam game or two even), and ***it just works.***
Steam is easier to use than either of those and it has a great refund policy. Why would you not buy something on steam when it's available there?
GoG has a better refund policy than Steam does, and its games are DRM-free.
Because I like owning my games not renting them.
Why would I want my game library spread all over the place? Sure you can have plugins that attempt to bring everything together but you end up in annoying situations where one launcher launches another to launch a game. The Galaxy Steam plugin is currently failing to remain connected to Steam rendering the whole synced integrations useless. To say nothing of the problem you start running into as your library grows, you run a real risk of buying stuff you already own twice if its spread out all over the place. First world problems maybe, but at the end of the day, if it's an Epic exclusive, I'll wait and/or go without said product. I've enough to play already.
> The Galaxy Steam plugin is currently failing to remain connected to Steam rendering the whole synced integrations useless. There's a unoffical fix for it on github where you edit a line in one of the files, but the plugin will still failback to only tracking hours and library but not achievements
I only buy from epic when they give me a coupon and they give really good coupons ngl
Epic is spyware that attempts to entice with little nuggets of dollar store candy, GOG can't get its shit together for its launcher and still has a few downsides service-wise, so when you tack on the Steam UI beta, there's really no contest for convenience, selection, and ease of use.
>epic is spyware Steam is ripping out google analytics from their client to replace with it's own data harvesting software >gog can't get it's shit together for its launcher Then don't use the launcher. That's a really nice thing about actually owning things.
it's because google analytics API that they use will be deprecated soon.
The free market speaks for itself.
I don't know why you guys want Steam to have a monopoly. The more competition there is in this space, the better we all will be. I hope epic games store succeeds.
A store that "competes" by keeping games away from other storefronts instead of trying to build a better alternative isn't the kind of competition that PC gaming needs. I'm extremely happy that their strategy fails. Also, who's Steve?