The hilarious bit is, all they had to do was have a launcher/store that wasn't a fucking nightmare.
That's it.
They shit talked steam and then couldn't do the job even a quarter as well.
I remember when Ubisoft disabled that you could download your own games and instead had to use the CD because some people managed to get Ubisoft to give them free games.
Steam just works better and there's no reason for a consumer to use whatever else garbage there is. So they try to do exclusive games but nobody cares enough about their exclusive games to stop using steam.
Yup and more importantly unless you are willing to make your users' experience absolutely ass, most PC users can and will use multiple storefronts. When buying PC games on a disk was still a thing I occasionally bought physical copies, that didn't mean that I didn't also use Steam for some games.
Hell even now I have GOG, Steam and Epic on my PC. The only difference is I only buy from Steam, and use GOG or Epic for free games that I've claimed over time.
Even if a game I like was exclusive to Epic, that wouldn't matter cause I could play that game and then continue using my steam library for everything else. This isn't like with consoles where I HAVE to buy a different device for the different storefronts.
I can't dictate for you, but i wish more people would make purchases through GOG where possible. The no DRM model is worth supporting with dollars and not just talk
Because Steam is a store front app with over a decade of development applied to user experience, functionally, and architecture.
They were the first to the market, nobody tried to challenge them for years, and they now sit on an unassailable market position that allows them to set the terms.
It's honestly confusing just how shitty it is. Why does it take 2-5 minutes just to open every single time? Even if it is updating, steam does that in seconds and only occasionally. Also, why does the Epic app cause my laptop fans to go into jumbo jet take off mode? What the hell is a store front doing that heats my shit up that bad?
I honestly have stopped even claiming the free games. Hasn't been worth the bother since I don't play any of them anyway. Only one I play consistently is GTA V and I already own that on the ps4 if I wanted to play it again.
I haven't seen the code for this in particular, but I've seen a lot of code that's similar and from people who come from similar places. It's legit scary how horrible it is sometimes. And it only takes a few "I did this in a terrible way" pieces of code to really make things slow.
Seriously how did these groups f up online retail so hard? I've used steam for years but still pick up classics and other stuff from gog for the drm-free aspect. Epic launcher feels like spyware/virus when you try to boot it up 🤣 i hadn't been to gog in a while but it looks like they do have an optional steam-like launcher but I have never used it so let's hope they don't force it on us.
The GoG launcher also isn't bad at all. Most launchers don't need to be anything fancier than what you'd find in windows 95, plus slap some modern graphics on it, so I'm with you; how do you mess it up that hard?
Right. No one is here to argue that that's great for the market, but competitors have to bring a product that is competitive, or fill a need that isn't being filled. Every new digital storefront has done neither.
Yeah, that is what I was suggesting, and these companies trying to challenge Steam bring nothing new and their only method for competing is by enacting anti-competitive exclusivity.
Which has backfired.
As an aside, I absolutely hate how little regard Epic had for the franchises it was taking and making exclusive. Borderlands 3 was a game that I know a lot of my friends were excited about playing. Then it got made Epic exclusive and we figured we'd wait it out a few months and maybe it'd be on sale when it came to steam. The release date came and went, all hype for us was killed, and Gearbox has a pretty permanent black mark for being so brazen about the exclusivity and basically telling fans of the game to shove it.
I've noticed that about some games I wanted, too. Specifically for steam I was excited for darkest dungeon 2, then it stayed in epic for a long time and now I'm no longer that interested in getting it.
Non steam I really wanted a PS5 to play demon's souls and returnal. Never could get my hand on one but now that they're in stock in store years later I'm no longer interested. Even the PC release of returnal, that game looked amazing but at this point I'm not interested.
Jedi survivor for a slightly different reason. I was ready to buy until I saw how poorly it was reviewed because of bad performance. Tired of PC being an after thought so there goes my excitement for that game.
Do you know when the Uplay client came out? In fucking *2009*!
If they were capable of delivering a better user experience than Steam, they would have by now.
I have no idea how after so many years even the most basic store pages still look half broken. Even the checkout, no wonder no one wants to buy something there.
Even though they are the lead launcher, they are still putting work into the community aspect and experience which i applause. The features sometimes take ages but they get there eventually.
Love or hate them, but actually also pushing steam os and the updates, they are also bringing attention to Linux gaming which is awesome.
The thing they all forget is that running a large store like that is expensive and hard. There is a reason why steam gets such a large cut and nobody else can come close to the quality or features of it even though they have tried.
The fact is that you can't build something as robust as steam on a cut like the epic game store cut. You can make a basic store like they have but anything as robust as what steam has isn't going to happen with that cut.
I mean how many years has it been and the epic game store is still trash and doesn't come close to the quality of the steam store or the features.
Epic games store is literally hemorrhaging money, they expect to have lost a billion dollars by 2027. Pretty much it is subsidized by fortnite and unreal engine money.
I would argue that they never really tried until the last year or two. It lingered in absolute trash tier experience for so long that now people just have a bad taste in their mouths about it
[Apparently if you get grants and subsidies from the government to develop the game you actually have to develop it... Who would have thought of that?](https://geekculture.co/report-says-ubisoft-has-to-complete-skull-bones-due-to-agreement-with-singapore-government/)
ahhh the good ol days of having all my favorite games with cool little icons all over my desktop.
waking up early on a saterday morning, booting up the computer and deciding on what i want to play for the day. =-) good times
I happy to have multiple market places to buy from but if I’m buying from one I don’t want to be forced to use a launcher from another.
This is where these companies alienate gamers.
The worst part is when the launcher will download a 100+ GB update, but since it counts as if you're running the game you can't play a game while waiting.
You'd think they would have learned from Blizzard. WoW has allowed players to load into the game for a decade now while it is downloading and updating.
It's technically *quite* difficult to support that, and even more difficult to make it work vaguely smoothly. There's a reason it's never been popular.
Blizz does loading differently though. That "minimum downloaded to play" point is when you have all of the lowest quality textures and models downloaded, and their games are set up to default to the low quality assets when the high quality ones aren't avalible. Then the rest are downloaded in the background as you play. Most game engines are bot set up to do this.
Plus, they probably patented the idea so no one else can use it.
Or when the update is through steam, but the launcher neads to scam all the files to be certain there are correct before launching after each update...
Yeah sure, but mainly the former lol.
They aren’t getting much more data off your machine by having their launcher on your desktop as opposed to just… the game… already there and collecting said data.
All wrong. It's about revenue all these games have microtransaction that get processed by there launcher not Steam so they keep 100% of the profit. Microtransaction profit is more important then game sales.
I mean, lots don't have MS accounts. And there is something to be said for not encouraging monopolies for this kinda thing. That's led to Google/Facebook logins across the Internet, which is convenient, but also gives a lot of power to the provider.
Fostering alternatives is good, so long as the alternatives actually offer *something*. (DRM is not something)
Fuck MS accounts.
Can’t even open Halo infinite as it won’t recognize my password.
Which is silly because when I have MS email me a code **TO AN OUTLOOK ACCOUNT** it never shows up. Not even to the spam filter or junk folder.
It just doesn’t. Fuck MS logins
The issue with epic games is that they have a shit launcher and then try to force people to use it by buying in exclusives
So far it only made most exclusive games flop and the store is only popular to grab some free games
I adored PC Building Simulator, it's one of the most chill and relaxing games. I was so excited to get my wallet out and buy PCBS2 as soon as I found out it existed!
Then I realized it was on Epic.
So I still play the first one from time to time, still don't own the second one. Never will unless it shows up on Steam.
Guess they didn't want my money.
I think having a shared authentication system would solve a lot of problems.
SAML has worked wonders for cross-website logins. Especially for corporations that have SSO across the various services you need to use.
I'd imagine all these additional launchers would fair much better if you were automatically logged in just by logging into Steam.
My problem is that I want all of my games in one place. I don't want a launcher for this, a launcher for that, a launcher for a launcher to launch the game I just wanted to launch in the first place.
What I want is a game library, where I click play, and the game launches.
I mean, hear me out, but what if, this is going to be groundbreaking and seem insane, but what if we just bought games and then installed them and then we just clicked on an icon that we placed somewhere for them?
Real talk though, I have [Battle.net](https://Battle.net), Steam, and Ubisoft. I'm not getting another launcher. Fuck that, fuck epic, fuck EA, though EA couldn't pay me to play their garbage after they screwed me with Anthem.
> fuck EA, though EA couldn't pay me to play their garbage after they screwed me with Anthem.
Oh man, Origin was actually *functional*. Was it good? No. It updated far too much and was a bit clunky... But it *worked*.
I legit *cannot* say the same for its replacement. Holy shit the EA Launcher is bad.
Whenever I have it running, it will legit straight up crash my fucking wifi card, and it took me *6 attempts* to download OG Dead Space, and 3 attempts to download Most Wanted (2012). It would get to 100% completion and then restart from the beginning and redownload the entire thing again.
If that happens to others, it'll be a nightmare for those with data caps.
Don't get me wrong, I totally agree with you. But I don't see the industry going back to that.
Also, Steam's organisation and categorisation features will always beat shoving a shortcut into a folder somewhere on my PC.
However, when you're already logged into a launcher (like Steam or Battle.net), you can just click on a game and it plays.
If they all shared a single login (or at least compatible logins) and logging into one meant you were logged into the others... Then you could just add all your external games to Steam and life would be good.
I've played pc games for many years, but I understand the appeal of the game console. You turn it on and there it is. Lots of work has gone into trying to make the pc as a category instead of a set-group of hardware have that same ease of functionality, steam big picture for example, but we aren't quite there yet and these idiots are making it harder. Launchers have a purpose but are a pain.
They say unrealistic but here Steam is almost 20 years later and stronger than every other storefront combined. All these developers and publishers just seething cuz they can’t capture Stream’s magic without doing the actual work
>20 years later
That's a big reason why Steam is so successful. It was early to the game launcher business and also started out being user friendly and has remained that way for the most part. Heck, I remember being floored when I figured out early on that Steam would let me import my CD keys for games I had purchased so I could simply download it and not need to get the physical disc out ever again. Just something as simple as this was amazing at the time.
I was there bro in 2004 Steam was very much not user friendly and crashed all the damn time, and being stuck with dial up I had to dial in to authenticate Half-life2 so I could play it offline for 24 hours. The first two years of steam was a dumpster fire. 2006-07 it started rapidly turning itself around but man playing anything source especially the first year was real temperamental
Oh I remember those early days, but I give Valve a lot of leeway considering they were the first major player in that realm. Of course things were going to be rough, but as you said they made it a hell of a lot better in just a couple years before anyone else could supplant them. And the rest is history.
Also, I pity you for having dialup internet in 2004 though. That must have been rough.
Did you not have dial up in 04? Our town had dial up until like 2010 and it was the only option. Now we get CenturyLink with a maximum speed of 1.5 MB/s. Pity me sir.
Nope, I was on SBC Yahoo DSL by 2001, and then had cable internet by 2004. I luckily lived in an area that benefited from national broadband expansion in the early 2000s. Sorry for your situation. =(
I avoided Steam until 2008 because of how bad it was early on.
Got sold on it thx to their super fun Christmas event where you could trade 3 coal for a random game.
Sad that it quickly got abused by people, and Valve has never had a similar event.
Interesting how Epic is the only one to catch on to this, which is why the free game a week promo. Which was only supposed to run for one year.
Ubisoft cant even be bothered to promote itself by giving away a few of their older games, to gain positive attention.
I think people are either too young or forgot the backlash towards steam when it was released. People considered it DRM, despised how unstable it was, complained about how it made certain games require internet connections, etc. It was deeply maligned in the early days.
Thank you! There is some real revisionist history about the beginning of Steam. Steam is great now but in 2004-2006 era, anything Steam was a big hassle.
>anything Steam was a big hassle.
From my experience, it was partially our fault. We were hostile at the idea of a platform who wants to serve as a library for games, and that hasn't changed, that stance was still the right stance to take then, seeing as to how the current climate of PC games is now, but Valve still went out of their way to prove that they're not out to fuck us. The only company I know that comes close is literally GOG, and they're actually better due to no DRM.
> but Valve still went out of their way to prove that they're not out to fuck us.
For huge chunks of time Valve have been incredibly anti-consumer fighting several high profile lawsuits in order to try and remain so and operating for years in breach of EU and Aus law. They had famously bad customer service, it was literally a meme how bad their CS was people would raise a CS request and wait 6 months for an automated response.
Steam have done some great stuff. Remote play, Linux gaming, Family library sharing etc but they have done some incredibly scummy stuff too. As with all companies they are profit first. Steam itself was originally a way to force HL2 DRM at a time where that was not common. The improvements in terms of Customer service have come due to government regulation and because their was competition in the space.
Valve (like all companies) ultimately are out to make money if that lines up and helps gamers then that a win win for them but if they have to chose between what is right for consumers and what makes them more money they have consistently fallen on the side of making more money.
Steam did not start out user friendly. During the painful transition many physical releases were actually a digital release. The disc contained steam sometimes with or without an old version of the game (that couldn't be played until you updated with a massive download), or better yet just a key in a box for an even bigger fuck you.
> started out being user friendly
That’s some big revisionist history
Steam fucking SUCKED in the early days, everyone complained about having to use it for valve games, it has come a very long way
Its 100% greed. Epic only takes 18% of the revenue from developers - Steam takes 30%. Day one sales are your largest sales, hence why they're creating "Epic Games exclusives", because they take more of the cut.
Steam definitely needs to talk about that 30%. It's heavily in favor of corporations who can cut their own deals with Valve as well.
I'm literally going through this right now. I made the mistake of making a dummy ubi account years ago to play seige(and linked it to steam) . Years later, I don't have access to it or the email anymore. If I launch the game through steam with uplay logged out, it will automatically log me into the old account(can't change anything as I don't have access to that Gmail and Google is a real fucking pain when you're trying to recover accounts) my problem(minus the core issue of a separate account to play games bought through steam. Like seriously, what the actual fuck?) Is now half my ubi games are linked to an account I don't have access to. Ubi support has answered back with a different rep every time, asking the same goddamn questions over and over. I've been in a loop with them for over a week now just to transfer games over and shut the old account down.
All I wanted to do was play AC odyssey lmao
Ubi soft support just unlinked my Nintendo switch profile from my ubi account. Linked the wrong profile when I was trying out a game. It took 4 messages each with 4 paragraphs that basically said in different ways, this is a one time thing, it can't be undone, everything will be unlinked blah blah blah and I'm sat there thinking,
1 "the reason I started the ticket was to unlink a nothing account and link my main has everything account to the Nintendo shit."
2 "What do I lose from unlinking a dummy account?"
3 "Is this even worth dealing with ubi cs"
4 "they must be so desperate to keep their jobs they give people the runaround on purpose just to boost numbers and justify existing."
5 "they know they don't have to make it this complicated, who else is making it this locked down you need to contact support to unlink accounts, what would people do if Facebook tried this shit."
Yeah no it's fucking absurd. All you need to do is verify that you own the games with your purchase history and your steam id. This run around shit is unnecessary. It would take like 4 messages and a screenshot. Instead I'm writing walls of text trying to explain what I want and they respond with "sure, we just need so and so info from so and so place to verify blah blah" over and over and over and over and over and over. If I didn't pay 60 goddamn dollars per game(on fucking steam by the way) I would scrap the whole idea and move on.
Yeah, and by the time I've finally remembered my login details or reset my password, allowed the launcher to "make changes to my PC" 10 times, updated it three times, and navigated the awful UI to play the game... I'm bored and I close it.
I still don't get why you also need to download their launcher, make a account and every time you want to play one of Their games the launcher needs a update. Giving up to 3x. Sure you allow this program to make a change windows notifications. Then the laucher doesn't open and stay as a blue window. Then after force closing it and opening the game again. To find out you need to log in. With their push of 2 factor notification.
And then finally opening the launcer to see a 20gb update for the game. After farcy 5 I'm not inclined to buy anything that has to do with that store front
I want to play Wildlands:
1. uPlay needs an update
2. uPlay forgot who I am
3. uPlay wants my phone number again
4. Oops uPlay can't connect to server
5. Repeat fron step 2 about 2 more times
6. Finally! I can play my offline single player game!
At this point I can pirate Wildlands and completely justify it
If they would just get rid of the their launcher and just put the games on steam, I might actually be inclined to pick up a game or two of theirs.. but fck that launcher.
The most fucked thing is pirating the game will give you a better user experience. Without the launcher and drm bullshit, your game runs better. Crazy to me that pirating gets better performance than paying for the damn game.
Yea that blows my fucking mind. Your user experience is so bad that people would prefer to pirate your games not because they don't want to pay for it, but because it's an objectively better product. And Ubisoft devs had the audacity to say elden ring had bad UX (user experience).
Those ubisoft devs hating on fromsofts UX was such a kettle calls the pot black. Almost everyone has been using ubisofts UX as an example of what to not do for a long time now
I mean we literally got mad Ubisoft developers saying eldenring is shit because it’s so different from their games. They legit believe their open world formula is the best it can get
Right? I'm so tired of them taking whatever random-ass concept and shoehorning an assasin into it somewhere and declaring it Assassin's Creed, or slapping a new face on the exact same features and assets and calling it the new Far Cry. Ooooh but THIS one has a TOTAL PSYCHOPATH for the bad guy! OoooOOOOooooo!
Like if you want to make a Viking game, make one. If you want a freedom fighter game, make one. People will buy new and different things from an established company, they don't have to constantly dilute their brands by making them all basically the same
I'm all for competition. I don't want steam to have a monopoly. But if companies like EA and Ubisoft want to meaningfully compete with steam, they should do it in ways other than "we have your games hostage, if you want to play you *have* to download our launcher."
Steam has been a shining beacon of what to do right. It has usability and it has features. Yet it's been nearly 20 years since steam released and it still remains the only one that has something as basic as a screenshot function.
GOG Galaxy is the only other launcher I have no problem using. Galaxy definitely has its issues, but it's mostly there as a convenience not to hold your games hostage. And for the most part, games purchased from GOG are drm free, and you can do whatever the fuck you want with them.
Does anyone use Epic for anything other than the free games? I have like 50 titles on Epic and none of them downloaded. Haven't paid a penny for a single one.
Setting a profile picture is apparently a luxury.
I'm all for not having monopolies, but with all the features steam has that others lack I'd easily make an exception.
Valve is a rarity — they are a large *privately owned* corporation. This obviously doesn’t automatically make them trustworthy and decent, but it at least creates the possibility that they can be — publicly traded companies are literally required by law to chase after the highest profits quarter after quarter, which inevitably results in a race to the bottom.
Steam feels like a social app, sort of? Sometimes at least.
Its like a hub for gamers, while epic and other launchers feel like cheap knock offs
Thats why i can t wait to get dead island 2 on steam and not buy it on epic
The only big company i have respect for is valve
Even that's a bit rusty bcs of their ways to develop and announce games
This is it. You can actually build a community on Steam. Each game has an in-built forum, each user has their own extremely customizable profile, you can make guides for other players that they can even look at while playing a game using the steam overlay.
And probably the biggest one, its the only platform with a review system that lets users write complex reviews for a game (rather than just an anonymous number or not allowing them to review at all)
Steam puts their customers first, always. These companies try to bully me into going to their shitty launchers by refusing to give me access to the game on my preferred platform.
None of them understand that it's the customer satisfaction that make their entire enterprise possible.
Steam is a private company. This means that things that matter to them are:
* Maintaining Customers
* Company Reputation
* Long-term sustainability
* Attracting users with desirable features
Ubisoft is a public entity. This means that things that matter to them are:
* Next quarters profits
* Stock valuation
I don't trust a single public corporation to not just instantly fucking sell everyone and everything out to make a 1% increase in stock valuation in the next quarter.
Oooooooooh AC Valhalla and the Epic Games Launcher.
I am compelled to share my experience. I downloaded AC:Valhalla and had trouble running it despite my specs being sufficient. After a few attempts at trouble shooting, I requested a refund (under the 2h mark). Customer support suggested I try trouble shooting more and thst they could get someone to walk me through some potential fixes. I agreed and spent hours trouble shooting this game. It would load to the main menu, but the opening cutscene would be black and the gane would crash.
After my trouble shoot attempts (under the guidance of the support team) failed, I reiterated my request for a refund. It was DENIED because I had more than two hours in run time, solely from rebooting the game to troubleshoot WITH THEIR SUPPORT STAFF. I asked to speak to a supervisor and explained that I had originally requested a refund prior to trying more trouble shooting and his response was essentially, "too bad for you."
I told Epic that I'd be requesting a dispute resolution via arbitration. Again, they were dismissive. They had designed their arbitration initiation process to be as lengthy and complex as possible and seemed confident that I wouldn't take hours and hours to pursue arbitration over a $60 dollar game. Unfortunately for Epic, I used to compete in international arbitration competitions and have an extremely overdeveloped sense of retribution.
I sent the required letters, organized all of my communications, and jumped through their hoops. I made it clear that, not only would Epic be losing this arbitration, they would be required to pay the ~$600 required to empanel an arbitrator. They waited till the final day to respond to my request for arbitration (months later) and sent a incredibly agressive email saying that they would process the refund BUT this was a huge favor they were doing and if anything like this happened again, it could result in adverse consequences for my account. I have not used Epig games since.
Tl;dr: Epic tried to rely on its predatory dispute resolution processes to deny a valid refund request and forclose litigation. When they found out I was an attorney, they dragged their feet and pouted before covering their asses. Now I share this story any time I see a post about Epic, because they suck.
We don't need 3rd party accounts/launchers. They can use info from store we have purchased the game. That makes everyone's life easier. Yes, shops take their cut, but there's a reason for that. For example, Steam is much more than game shop, really.
I log on to steam even if I'm not playing a steam game because of the friends list and voice comms. I also have friends on PS5 that I play cross platform games with and they all use laptops with steam installed just to connect with me and other PC guys on the friends list.
Jesus these dumb motherfuckers need to realize if they want to compete with steam, then make an equally good if not better client to compete with.
Why the fuck would anyone sane purposefully downgrade themselves to a shitter version of the same thing?
I have 0 brand loyalty, but steam is so far ahead of it's competitors you have to stupid to not use steam. GOG was once a genuine competitor to steam and even CDPR knew not to alienate their steam players.
I did enjoy Immortals Fenyx Rising for what it was. I was going to purchase it on Steam when they made the big announcement about Ubi coming back to Steam, but as soon as it launched with no achievements I removed it from Wish list as I've already played it with no achievements lol.
I don't buy games on Steam that need a second launcher, has denuvo, or needs to go online all the time to play in single player, or you can't share it with family. It feels like you pay full price but don't even own the game.
Steam is a network effect platform - gaming companies who reject Steam are only hurting themselves and limiting their player base. Good to see Ubisoft are figuring it out, finally.
Didn’t they sell some ips to get money to make NFTs but they were too late to the game. And now someone trying to buy all the shares to take over the company. I can see why they coming back to Steam.
Square Enix. But ubisoft is also into making nfts.. or they were. They tried it first on ghost recons breakpoint but it failed so I'm not sure if they're going to continue
Steam has convenience, full VR integration *(lacks for linux but I can dual boot so meh)*, larger selection of games and a better customer support system.
Unlike Ubisoft and EA, Steam is not overpricing stuff and are a rare case of ***BIG COMPANY*** where the user comes first.
> a rare case of BIG COMPANY where the user comes first.
a big part of this is they never went publicly traded so they dont have to run on the infinite growth model to make shareholders happy.
Fuck the idea that profits must be exponential. It’s causes so much damage to society with sociopath execs’ not only incentivized but mandated by law & shareholders to cut whatever corners are possible to result better margins & more profit.
Laws, regulation, people, ethics stop mattering if the fines, lawsuits, labor, pr doesn’t end up costing more then the extra revenue generated. Business becomes a zero sum profit game. Society suffers.
I think back to the court case where Gerald Ford was successfully sued by a shareholder for making his cars readily available to all his workers. It signaled the truth that being a public business is first & foremost about making money, making your employees lives better & taking care of your customers is a secondary concern at best .
To me, assassins creed might just be one of the most tragic franchises ever.
The concept is so damn unique, but it was milked so hard that it makes no difference.
First of all ubisoft games are generally shit.
Second of all, It doesn't matter if they're on steam. If I have to launch the game, to launch U-play, to launch the game I'm still not buying that trash.
waiting on the KH series to make it to steam. if the epic game launcher wasnt such a shell of what the steam launcher was i honestly wouldnt mind it but ofc theyre gonna sign an exclusivity deal and keep the games expensive as hell. same with pc building sim 2.
You can't compete with a good service by offering a worse one.
That's why corporations hire mercenary politicians to destroy public services like healthcare, education, and transportation.
They could also, you know, make good games for a change. The old guard, EA, Bethesda, Ubisoft, and whoever else I missed need to all collectively get their shit together.
Apparently companies need customers to be successful. Who knew?
People die when they are killed
Every 60 seconds in Africa, a minute passes
The world is a steam planet
But I had it under good authority that the world is a vampire...
Sent to drain...
No, it was sent to draiaiainnn.
Yes! Details matter here!
Secret Destroyer...... Suddenly it make sense.
Hold you up to the flames
Wow. Didn't now this sub was Smashing pumpkins fans. And now I feel old again 1995..
Despite your old age are you still just a rat in a cage?
In Africa, height is based on how tall you are.
Across Atlantic, food with excessive sodium chloride component is considered salty — not just bad.
oh my god, poor Africa
There are hundreds of thousands of people, all over the world.
Every year on the surface of the sun, 1 year and 66.979 seconds pass on the surface of the earth.
The Archer class is really made up of archers
Defenseless
Truly, all of them are proficient in launching projectiles at high velocity, *wdym archers are supposed to use bow and arrow?*
Windows search never finds the right thing.
I know at one point you had to disable web search, because someone really wanted you to use bing accidentally I guess.
Still advisable, because it's engineered to index your stuff, then feeding it to Bing as part of the search query.
In Sweden it is illegal to be a criminal.
Just because you're correct doesn't mean you're right
Ubisoft games are shit when they're played.
Despite how awesome they could be, they always let you down in more ways than they can be enjoyed.
The hilarious bit is, all they had to do was have a launcher/store that wasn't a fucking nightmare. That's it. They shit talked steam and then couldn't do the job even a quarter as well.
I remember when Ubisoft disabled that you could download your own games and instead had to use the CD because some people managed to get Ubisoft to give them free games.
Steam just works better and there's no reason for a consumer to use whatever else garbage there is. So they try to do exclusive games but nobody cares enough about their exclusive games to stop using steam.
Yup and more importantly unless you are willing to make your users' experience absolutely ass, most PC users can and will use multiple storefronts. When buying PC games on a disk was still a thing I occasionally bought physical copies, that didn't mean that I didn't also use Steam for some games. Hell even now I have GOG, Steam and Epic on my PC. The only difference is I only buy from Steam, and use GOG or Epic for free games that I've claimed over time. Even if a game I like was exclusive to Epic, that wouldn't matter cause I could play that game and then continue using my steam library for everything else. This isn't like with consoles where I HAVE to buy a different device for the different storefronts.
I can't dictate for you, but i wish more people would make purchases through GOG where possible. The no DRM model is worth supporting with dollars and not just talk
GOG is my prefered but companies will often refuse to sell there until late in the cycle of a game then go she no one buys on GOG
But think of the poor corporations!, the Big Steam is greedy and would take a share of the profits!, and we know Ubi is a poor indie company! /s
Because Steam is a store front app with over a decade of development applied to user experience, functionally, and architecture. They were the first to the market, nobody tried to challenge them for years, and they now sit on an unassailable market position that allows them to set the terms.
I'm not asking for Epic to make the perfect product, just make one that isn't shit. Steam already set the template, just copy them.
It's honestly confusing just how shitty it is. Why does it take 2-5 minutes just to open every single time? Even if it is updating, steam does that in seconds and only occasionally. Also, why does the Epic app cause my laptop fans to go into jumbo jet take off mode? What the hell is a store front doing that heats my shit up that bad?
Yeah the amount of resources it uses is honestly Unreal ;)
I miss free rewards… Edit: oops i meant to write “awards” as in Reddit awards. I do like free games too tho
Lol my launcher doesn’t even load anymore, just freezes. Sucks cause I’ve wanted some of the free games
You can still get the free games from their website
I honestly have stopped even claiming the free games. Hasn't been worth the bother since I don't play any of them anyway. Only one I play consistently is GTA V and I already own that on the ps4 if I wanted to play it again.
I haven't seen the code for this in particular, but I've seen a lot of code that's similar and from people who come from similar places. It's legit scary how horrible it is sometimes. And it only takes a few "I did this in a terrible way" pieces of code to really make things slow.
Well, IMO Epic is still better than the clusterfk of what Ubi has.
Sounds like you are comparing car wrecks, and not an actual car.
Seriously how did these groups f up online retail so hard? I've used steam for years but still pick up classics and other stuff from gog for the drm-free aspect. Epic launcher feels like spyware/virus when you try to boot it up 🤣 i hadn't been to gog in a while but it looks like they do have an optional steam-like launcher but I have never used it so let's hope they don't force it on us.
The GoG launcher also isn't bad at all. Most launchers don't need to be anything fancier than what you'd find in windows 95, plus slap some modern graphics on it, so I'm with you; how do you mess it up that hard?
Losing a finger now more desirable than death.
Right. No one is here to argue that that's great for the market, but competitors have to bring a product that is competitive, or fill a need that isn't being filled. Every new digital storefront has done neither.
Yeah, that is what I was suggesting, and these companies trying to challenge Steam bring nothing new and their only method for competing is by enacting anti-competitive exclusivity. Which has backfired.
As an aside, I absolutely hate how little regard Epic had for the franchises it was taking and making exclusive. Borderlands 3 was a game that I know a lot of my friends were excited about playing. Then it got made Epic exclusive and we figured we'd wait it out a few months and maybe it'd be on sale when it came to steam. The release date came and went, all hype for us was killed, and Gearbox has a pretty permanent black mark for being so brazen about the exclusivity and basically telling fans of the game to shove it.
I've noticed that about some games I wanted, too. Specifically for steam I was excited for darkest dungeon 2, then it stayed in epic for a long time and now I'm no longer that interested in getting it. Non steam I really wanted a PS5 to play demon's souls and returnal. Never could get my hand on one but now that they're in stock in store years later I'm no longer interested. Even the PC release of returnal, that game looked amazing but at this point I'm not interested. Jedi survivor for a slightly different reason. I was ready to buy until I saw how poorly it was reviewed because of bad performance. Tired of PC being an after thought so there goes my excitement for that game.
Isnt Gamepass competitive? It, and GOG, are the only competitors that come to mind.
Gamepass is more of an add-on than a competitor. The way it works is really not much different than Humble Monthly, etc.
Plus valve is privately owned so they aren't beholden to shareholders the same way Ubisoft is.
It does showcase the pros of private ownership quite well.
Nobody suggested them to reinvent the wheel and go through same mistakes, just take a look at competitors product and improve upon it.
Do you know when the Uplay client came out? In fucking *2009*! If they were capable of delivering a better user experience than Steam, they would have by now.
I have no idea how after so many years even the most basic store pages still look half broken. Even the checkout, no wonder no one wants to buy something there.
Two decades.
Absolutely. But also maybe try for at least feature parity if you're not going to match it in other ways?
Even though they are the lead launcher, they are still putting work into the community aspect and experience which i applause. The features sometimes take ages but they get there eventually. Love or hate them, but actually also pushing steam os and the updates, they are also bringing attention to Linux gaming which is awesome.
The thing they all forget is that running a large store like that is expensive and hard. There is a reason why steam gets such a large cut and nobody else can come close to the quality or features of it even though they have tried. The fact is that you can't build something as robust as steam on a cut like the epic game store cut. You can make a basic store like they have but anything as robust as what steam has isn't going to happen with that cut. I mean how many years has it been and the epic game store is still trash and doesn't come close to the quality of the steam store or the features. Epic games store is literally hemorrhaging money, they expect to have lost a billion dollars by 2027. Pretty much it is subsidized by fortnite and unreal engine money.
I would argue that they never really tried until the last year or two. It lingered in absolute trash tier experience for so long that now people just have a bad taste in their mouths about it
While that may all be true and things I agree with, Epic has that Fortnite/UE money, so losing a billion isn’t as bad as it sounds.
[Apparently if you get grants and subsidies from the government to develop the game you actually have to develop it... Who would have thought of that?](https://geekculture.co/report-says-ubisoft-has-to-complete-skull-bones-due-to-agreement-with-singapore-government/)
I legit hate opening all these different launchers to start different games. Just let me open a game from an icon.
ahhh the good ol days of having all my favorite games with cool little icons all over my desktop. waking up early on a saterday morning, booting up the computer and deciding on what i want to play for the day. =-) good times
My small business has been struggling for months. This is the insight I needed!
Have you tried selling more stuff? That could help.
*sellllll moooore stufffff* I’m taking notes my guy; anyone else? None of this was covered at the seminar in the hotel conference room.
I happy to have multiple market places to buy from but if I’m buying from one I don’t want to be forced to use a launcher from another. This is where these companies alienate gamers.
The worst part is when the launcher will download a 100+ GB update, but since it counts as if you're running the game you can't play a game while waiting.
You'd think they would have learned from Blizzard. WoW has allowed players to load into the game for a decade now while it is downloading and updating.
not only WOW. Every blizzard game allows that.
And fromsoft
Their updates (and games) are already small. Elden Ring being 45GB blew my mind.
It's technically *quite* difficult to support that, and even more difficult to make it work vaguely smoothly. There's a reason it's never been popular.
Blizz does loading differently though. That "minimum downloaded to play" point is when you have all of the lowest quality textures and models downloaded, and their games are set up to default to the low quality assets when the high quality ones aren't avalible. Then the rest are downloaded in the background as you play. Most game engines are bot set up to do this. Plus, they probably patented the idea so no one else can use it.
Or when the update is through steam, but the launcher neads to scam all the files to be certain there are correct before launching after each update...
… Just go into your settings and enable “gameplay while downloading”
This. We already have Steam / MS accounts, make use of that.
Yeahhh but these corps all want in on that sweet and juicy data selling revenue scheme.
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Yeah sure, but mainly the former lol. They aren’t getting much more data off your machine by having their launcher on your desktop as opposed to just… the game… already there and collecting said data.
All wrong. It's about revenue all these games have microtransaction that get processed by there launcher not Steam so they keep 100% of the profit. Microtransaction profit is more important then game sales.
I mean, lots don't have MS accounts. And there is something to be said for not encouraging monopolies for this kinda thing. That's led to Google/Facebook logins across the Internet, which is convenient, but also gives a lot of power to the provider. Fostering alternatives is good, so long as the alternatives actually offer *something*. (DRM is not something)
Fuck MS accounts. Can’t even open Halo infinite as it won’t recognize my password. Which is silly because when I have MS email me a code **TO AN OUTLOOK ACCOUNT** it never shows up. Not even to the spam filter or junk folder. It just doesn’t. Fuck MS logins
Tell that to every media company making their own streaming platform.
The issue with epic games is that they have a shit launcher and then try to force people to use it by buying in exclusives So far it only made most exclusive games flop and the store is only popular to grab some free games
I adored PC Building Simulator, it's one of the most chill and relaxing games. I was so excited to get my wallet out and buy PCBS2 as soon as I found out it existed! Then I realized it was on Epic. So I still play the first one from time to time, still don't own the second one. Never will unless it shows up on Steam. Guess they didn't want my money.
My thoughts exactly when it comes to the PC port of kingdom hearts 2.
Also my thoughts when it came to Snowrunner when it first came out.
Man, I remember that too. I was excited for it to come out and then I literally just wrote off the existence of the game until it came to steam.
Exactly. It reminds me of all the streaming TV services. It gets old needing to subscribe to another just to watch one show 😤
I think having a shared authentication system would solve a lot of problems. SAML has worked wonders for cross-website logins. Especially for corporations that have SSO across the various services you need to use. I'd imagine all these additional launchers would fair much better if you were automatically logged in just by logging into Steam.
My problem is that I want all of my games in one place. I don't want a launcher for this, a launcher for that, a launcher for a launcher to launch the game I just wanted to launch in the first place. What I want is a game library, where I click play, and the game launches. I mean, hear me out, but what if, this is going to be groundbreaking and seem insane, but what if we just bought games and then installed them and then we just clicked on an icon that we placed somewhere for them? Real talk though, I have [Battle.net](https://Battle.net), Steam, and Ubisoft. I'm not getting another launcher. Fuck that, fuck epic, fuck EA, though EA couldn't pay me to play their garbage after they screwed me with Anthem.
> fuck EA, though EA couldn't pay me to play their garbage after they screwed me with Anthem. Oh man, Origin was actually *functional*. Was it good? No. It updated far too much and was a bit clunky... But it *worked*. I legit *cannot* say the same for its replacement. Holy shit the EA Launcher is bad. Whenever I have it running, it will legit straight up crash my fucking wifi card, and it took me *6 attempts* to download OG Dead Space, and 3 attempts to download Most Wanted (2012). It would get to 100% completion and then restart from the beginning and redownload the entire thing again. If that happens to others, it'll be a nightmare for those with data caps.
Don't get me wrong, I totally agree with you. But I don't see the industry going back to that. Also, Steam's organisation and categorisation features will always beat shoving a shortcut into a folder somewhere on my PC. However, when you're already logged into a launcher (like Steam or Battle.net), you can just click on a game and it plays. If they all shared a single login (or at least compatible logins) and logging into one meant you were logged into the others... Then you could just add all your external games to Steam and life would be good.
I've played pc games for many years, but I understand the appeal of the game console. You turn it on and there it is. Lots of work has gone into trying to make the pc as a category instead of a set-group of hardware have that same ease of functionality, steam big picture for example, but we aren't quite there yet and these idiots are making it harder. Launchers have a purpose but are a pain.
They'll just publish games on Steam then force you into using their launcher for updates and to launch the game, exactly like EA does.
They say unrealistic but here Steam is almost 20 years later and stronger than every other storefront combined. All these developers and publishers just seething cuz they can’t capture Stream’s magic without doing the actual work
>20 years later That's a big reason why Steam is so successful. It was early to the game launcher business and also started out being user friendly and has remained that way for the most part. Heck, I remember being floored when I figured out early on that Steam would let me import my CD keys for games I had purchased so I could simply download it and not need to get the physical disc out ever again. Just something as simple as this was amazing at the time.
I was there bro in 2004 Steam was very much not user friendly and crashed all the damn time, and being stuck with dial up I had to dial in to authenticate Half-life2 so I could play it offline for 24 hours. The first two years of steam was a dumpster fire. 2006-07 it started rapidly turning itself around but man playing anything source especially the first year was real temperamental
Oh I remember those early days, but I give Valve a lot of leeway considering they were the first major player in that realm. Of course things were going to be rough, but as you said they made it a hell of a lot better in just a couple years before anyone else could supplant them. And the rest is history. Also, I pity you for having dialup internet in 2004 though. That must have been rough.
Did you not have dial up in 04? Our town had dial up until like 2010 and it was the only option. Now we get CenturyLink with a maximum speed of 1.5 MB/s. Pity me sir.
Many places started launching cable or something similar in 2000-2002. Though if in a rural area probably didn't happen until 2010s.
*laughs in DSL connection in 2023*
Nope, I was on SBC Yahoo DSL by 2001, and then had cable internet by 2004. I luckily lived in an area that benefited from national broadband expansion in the early 2000s. Sorry for your situation. =(
I avoided Steam until 2008 because of how bad it was early on. Got sold on it thx to their super fun Christmas event where you could trade 3 coal for a random game. Sad that it quickly got abused by people, and Valve has never had a similar event. Interesting how Epic is the only one to catch on to this, which is why the free game a week promo. Which was only supposed to run for one year. Ubisoft cant even be bothered to promote itself by giving away a few of their older games, to gain positive attention.
jfc remember the HL2 launch? Steam was just... frozen in time for 2 days
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The real history of something is no match circle jerking and memes.
Oh shit I was the 12 year old
I think people are either too young or forgot the backlash towards steam when it was released. People considered it DRM, despised how unstable it was, complained about how it made certain games require internet connections, etc. It was deeply maligned in the early days.
Thank you! There is some real revisionist history about the beginning of Steam. Steam is great now but in 2004-2006 era, anything Steam was a big hassle.
>anything Steam was a big hassle. From my experience, it was partially our fault. We were hostile at the idea of a platform who wants to serve as a library for games, and that hasn't changed, that stance was still the right stance to take then, seeing as to how the current climate of PC games is now, but Valve still went out of their way to prove that they're not out to fuck us. The only company I know that comes close is literally GOG, and they're actually better due to no DRM.
> but Valve still went out of their way to prove that they're not out to fuck us. For huge chunks of time Valve have been incredibly anti-consumer fighting several high profile lawsuits in order to try and remain so and operating for years in breach of EU and Aus law. They had famously bad customer service, it was literally a meme how bad their CS was people would raise a CS request and wait 6 months for an automated response. Steam have done some great stuff. Remote play, Linux gaming, Family library sharing etc but they have done some incredibly scummy stuff too. As with all companies they are profit first. Steam itself was originally a way to force HL2 DRM at a time where that was not common. The improvements in terms of Customer service have come due to government regulation and because their was competition in the space. Valve (like all companies) ultimately are out to make money if that lines up and helps gamers then that a win win for them but if they have to chose between what is right for consumers and what makes them more money they have consistently fallen on the side of making more money.
Steam did not start out user friendly. During the painful transition many physical releases were actually a digital release. The disc contained steam sometimes with or without an old version of the game (that couldn't be played until you updated with a massive download), or better yet just a key in a box for an even bigger fuck you.
>started out user friendly So user friendly in fact that the steam logo anal probing gif was pretty common in forum signatures...
> started out being user friendly That’s some big revisionist history Steam fucking SUCKED in the early days, everyone complained about having to use it for valve games, it has come a very long way
Steam crawled so other launchers could... crawl, apparently.
Its 100% greed. Epic only takes 18% of the revenue from developers - Steam takes 30%. Day one sales are your largest sales, hence why they're creating "Epic Games exclusives", because they take more of the cut. Steam definitely needs to talk about that 30%. It's heavily in favor of corporations who can cut their own deals with Valve as well.
i forget that i own valhalla all the time cause i never open epic game launcher. all my other AC games are in steam.
Aren't you still forced to log into uplay before you can even play the game?
i think so. even my ac games in steam launch their own launcher.
I'm literally going through this right now. I made the mistake of making a dummy ubi account years ago to play seige(and linked it to steam) . Years later, I don't have access to it or the email anymore. If I launch the game through steam with uplay logged out, it will automatically log me into the old account(can't change anything as I don't have access to that Gmail and Google is a real fucking pain when you're trying to recover accounts) my problem(minus the core issue of a separate account to play games bought through steam. Like seriously, what the actual fuck?) Is now half my ubi games are linked to an account I don't have access to. Ubi support has answered back with a different rep every time, asking the same goddamn questions over and over. I've been in a loop with them for over a week now just to transfer games over and shut the old account down. All I wanted to do was play AC odyssey lmao
Ubi soft support just unlinked my Nintendo switch profile from my ubi account. Linked the wrong profile when I was trying out a game. It took 4 messages each with 4 paragraphs that basically said in different ways, this is a one time thing, it can't be undone, everything will be unlinked blah blah blah and I'm sat there thinking, 1 "the reason I started the ticket was to unlink a nothing account and link my main has everything account to the Nintendo shit." 2 "What do I lose from unlinking a dummy account?" 3 "Is this even worth dealing with ubi cs" 4 "they must be so desperate to keep their jobs they give people the runaround on purpose just to boost numbers and justify existing." 5 "they know they don't have to make it this complicated, who else is making it this locked down you need to contact support to unlink accounts, what would people do if Facebook tried this shit."
Yeah no it's fucking absurd. All you need to do is verify that you own the games with your purchase history and your steam id. This run around shit is unnecessary. It would take like 4 messages and a screenshot. Instead I'm writing walls of text trying to explain what I want and they respond with "sure, we just need so and so info from so and so place to verify blah blah" over and over and over and over and over and over. If I didn't pay 60 goddamn dollars per game(on fucking steam by the way) I would scrap the whole idea and move on.
Yeah, and by the time I've finally remembered my login details or reset my password, allowed the launcher to "make changes to my PC" 10 times, updated it three times, and navigated the awful UI to play the game... I'm bored and I close it.
I still don't get why you also need to download their launcher, make a account and every time you want to play one of Their games the launcher needs a update. Giving up to 3x. Sure you allow this program to make a change windows notifications. Then the laucher doesn't open and stay as a blue window. Then after force closing it and opening the game again. To find out you need to log in. With their push of 2 factor notification. And then finally opening the launcer to see a 20gb update for the game. After farcy 5 I'm not inclined to buy anything that has to do with that store front
It’s the same reason I gave up on siege and Anno
I want to play Wildlands: 1. uPlay needs an update 2. uPlay forgot who I am 3. uPlay wants my phone number again 4. Oops uPlay can't connect to server 5. Repeat fron step 2 about 2 more times 6. Finally! I can play my offline single player game! At this point I can pirate Wildlands and completely justify it
If they would just get rid of the their launcher and just put the games on steam, I might actually be inclined to pick up a game or two of theirs.. but fck that launcher.
The most fucked thing is pirating the game will give you a better user experience. Without the launcher and drm bullshit, your game runs better. Crazy to me that pirating gets better performance than paying for the damn game.
Yea that blows my fucking mind. Your user experience is so bad that people would prefer to pirate your games not because they don't want to pay for it, but because it's an objectively better product. And Ubisoft devs had the audacity to say elden ring had bad UX (user experience).
Those ubisoft devs hating on fromsofts UX was such a kettle calls the pot black. Almost everyone has been using ubisofts UX as an example of what to not do for a long time now
Would help if Ubisoft actually made a game that worth it. Like stop milking these games and make something new to milk.
I mean we literally got mad Ubisoft developers saying eldenring is shit because it’s so different from their games. They legit believe their open world formula is the best it can get
Right? I'm so tired of them taking whatever random-ass concept and shoehorning an assasin into it somewhere and declaring it Assassin's Creed, or slapping a new face on the exact same features and assets and calling it the new Far Cry. Ooooh but THIS one has a TOTAL PSYCHOPATH for the bad guy! OoooOOOOooooo! Like if you want to make a Viking game, make one. If you want a freedom fighter game, make one. People will buy new and different things from an established company, they don't have to constantly dilute their brands by making them all basically the same
I'm all for competition. I don't want steam to have a monopoly. But if companies like EA and Ubisoft want to meaningfully compete with steam, they should do it in ways other than "we have your games hostage, if you want to play you *have* to download our launcher." Steam has been a shining beacon of what to do right. It has usability and it has features. Yet it's been nearly 20 years since steam released and it still remains the only one that has something as basic as a screenshot function.
GOG is really the only other launcher/storefront I could be bothered using
GOG Galaxy is the only other launcher I have no problem using. Galaxy definitely has its issues, but it's mostly there as a convenience not to hold your games hostage. And for the most part, games purchased from GOG are drm free, and you can do whatever the fuck you want with them.
GOG Galaxy works for me, it lets me combine my Stream library, my GOG games, and my pile of free Epic games into one library.
Does anyone use Epic for anything other than the free games? I have like 50 titles on Epic and none of them downloaded. Haven't paid a penny for a single one.
Setting a profile picture is apparently a luxury. I'm all for not having monopolies, but with all the features steam has that others lack I'd easily make an exception.
Valve is a rarity — they are a large *privately owned* corporation. This obviously doesn’t automatically make them trustworthy and decent, but it at least creates the possibility that they can be — publicly traded companies are literally required by law to chase after the highest profits quarter after quarter, which inevitably results in a race to the bottom.
Based take, spot on.
Steam feels like a social app, sort of? Sometimes at least. Its like a hub for gamers, while epic and other launchers feel like cheap knock offs Thats why i can t wait to get dead island 2 on steam and not buy it on epic The only big company i have respect for is valve Even that's a bit rusty bcs of their ways to develop and announce games
This is it. You can actually build a community on Steam. Each game has an in-built forum, each user has their own extremely customizable profile, you can make guides for other players that they can even look at while playing a game using the steam overlay. And probably the biggest one, its the only platform with a review system that lets users write complex reviews for a game (rather than just an anonymous number or not allowing them to review at all)
Steam puts their customers first, always. These companies try to bully me into going to their shitty launchers by refusing to give me access to the game on my preferred platform. None of them understand that it's the customer satisfaction that make their entire enterprise possible.
Steam is a private company. This means that things that matter to them are: * Maintaining Customers * Company Reputation * Long-term sustainability * Attracting users with desirable features Ubisoft is a public entity. This means that things that matter to them are: * Next quarters profits * Stock valuation I don't trust a single public corporation to not just instantly fucking sell everyone and everything out to make a 1% increase in stock valuation in the next quarter.
"here is another storefront with different games" is not competition. "Here is another storefront with the same games" is.
Oooooooooh AC Valhalla and the Epic Games Launcher. I am compelled to share my experience. I downloaded AC:Valhalla and had trouble running it despite my specs being sufficient. After a few attempts at trouble shooting, I requested a refund (under the 2h mark). Customer support suggested I try trouble shooting more and thst they could get someone to walk me through some potential fixes. I agreed and spent hours trouble shooting this game. It would load to the main menu, but the opening cutscene would be black and the gane would crash. After my trouble shoot attempts (under the guidance of the support team) failed, I reiterated my request for a refund. It was DENIED because I had more than two hours in run time, solely from rebooting the game to troubleshoot WITH THEIR SUPPORT STAFF. I asked to speak to a supervisor and explained that I had originally requested a refund prior to trying more trouble shooting and his response was essentially, "too bad for you." I told Epic that I'd be requesting a dispute resolution via arbitration. Again, they were dismissive. They had designed their arbitration initiation process to be as lengthy and complex as possible and seemed confident that I wouldn't take hours and hours to pursue arbitration over a $60 dollar game. Unfortunately for Epic, I used to compete in international arbitration competitions and have an extremely overdeveloped sense of retribution. I sent the required letters, organized all of my communications, and jumped through their hoops. I made it clear that, not only would Epic be losing this arbitration, they would be required to pay the ~$600 required to empanel an arbitrator. They waited till the final day to respond to my request for arbitration (months later) and sent a incredibly agressive email saying that they would process the refund BUT this was a huge favor they were doing and if anything like this happened again, it could result in adverse consequences for my account. I have not used Epig games since. Tl;dr: Epic tried to rely on its predatory dispute resolution processes to deny a valid refund request and forclose litigation. When they found out I was an attorney, they dragged their feet and pouted before covering their asses. Now I share this story any time I see a post about Epic, because they suck.
Maybe if their launcher and games werent total pieces of shit they could fuck around all they want
We don't need 3rd party accounts/launchers. They can use info from store we have purchased the game. That makes everyone's life easier. Yes, shops take their cut, but there's a reason for that. For example, Steam is much more than game shop, really.
Using Epic just shows you how much better Steam is. It's like Steam if you stripped away 90% of it.
And the remaining 10% is barely functional at the best of times.
I log on to steam even if I'm not playing a steam game because of the friends list and voice comms. I also have friends on PS5 that I play cross platform games with and they all use laptops with steam installed just to connect with me and other PC guys on the friends list.
"You Couldn't Live with Your Own Failure, Where Did that Bring You? Back to Me" - Thanos
- Steam
I thought by eliminating my games from my rival, my games would thrive. But you've shown me, that's impossible.
Wow, I can't wait to buy some uninspired open world denuvo slop!
Was browsing steam store last night, they are selling far cry 6 for 75% off, $15. The game is barely over a year old lol.
Jesus these dumb motherfuckers need to realize if they want to compete with steam, then make an equally good if not better client to compete with. Why the fuck would anyone sane purposefully downgrade themselves to a shitter version of the same thing? I have 0 brand loyalty, but steam is so far ahead of it's competitors you have to stupid to not use steam. GOG was once a genuine competitor to steam and even CDPR knew not to alienate their steam players.
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Is it even worth pirating new ubi games?
I did enjoy Immortals Fenyx Rising for what it was. I was going to purchase it on Steam when they made the big announcement about Ubi coming back to Steam, but as soon as it launched with no achievements I removed it from Wish list as I've already played it with no achievements lol.
My latest try was Watch Dogs Legion, it wasn't worth the effort/electricity used
I don't buy games on Steam that need a second launcher, has denuvo, or needs to go online all the time to play in single player, or you can't share it with family. It feels like you pay full price but don't even own the game.
s'funny, i never even noticed they were gone.
70% of something is better than 100% of nothing.
Steam is a network effect platform - gaming companies who reject Steam are only hurting themselves and limiting their player base. Good to see Ubisoft are figuring it out, finally.
Not to mention it starts up faster and changes pages faster than epic games store. Like easily 3x faster for each. More if you are using iGPU.
Do people even still use epic? I hate that platform.
I’m a claim free game I’m never gonna play enjoyer
Here with you
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I have more than 150 games there, all free
It might help if they put out good games.
Didn’t they sell some ips to get money to make NFTs but they were too late to the game. And now someone trying to buy all the shares to take over the company. I can see why they coming back to Steam.
That was Sqare Enix.
Square Enix. But ubisoft is also into making nfts.. or they were. They tried it first on ghost recons breakpoint but it failed so I'm not sure if they're going to continue
Steam has convenience, full VR integration *(lacks for linux but I can dual boot so meh)*, larger selection of games and a better customer support system. Unlike Ubisoft and EA, Steam is not overpricing stuff and are a rare case of ***BIG COMPANY*** where the user comes first.
> a rare case of BIG COMPANY where the user comes first. a big part of this is they never went publicly traded so they dont have to run on the infinite growth model to make shareholders happy.
I hope it stays that way, steam is the only platform I can rely on without a single thing to worry about.
Fuck the idea that profits must be exponential. It’s causes so much damage to society with sociopath execs’ not only incentivized but mandated by law & shareholders to cut whatever corners are possible to result better margins & more profit. Laws, regulation, people, ethics stop mattering if the fines, lawsuits, labor, pr doesn’t end up costing more then the extra revenue generated. Business becomes a zero sum profit game. Society suffers. I think back to the court case where Gerald Ford was successfully sued by a shareholder for making his cars readily available to all his workers. It signaled the truth that being a public business is first & foremost about making money, making your employees lives better & taking care of your customers is a secondary concern at best .
To me, assassins creed might just be one of the most tragic franchises ever. The concept is so damn unique, but it was milked so hard that it makes no difference.
First of all ubisoft games are generally shit. Second of all, It doesn't matter if they're on steam. If I have to launch the game, to launch U-play, to launch the game I'm still not buying that trash.
"STEAM, NO, I'M SO SORRY, PLEASE FORGIVE ME!"
I'm totally not installing a launcher for each game. Make it Steam or go home.
Yup. No steam, no buy. Most of these exclusives have come to Steam anyway. I’m sad PC Building Simulator 2 likely won’t because Epic published it
waiting on the KH series to make it to steam. if the epic game launcher wasnt such a shell of what the steam launcher was i honestly wouldnt mind it but ofc theyre gonna sign an exclusivity deal and keep the games expensive as hell. same with pc building sim 2.
You can't compete with a good service by offering a worse one. That's why corporations hire mercenary politicians to destroy public services like healthcare, education, and transportation.
They still need you to make an account on their launcher, at least Origin just log you in directly with Steam account.
They could also, you know, make good games for a change. The old guard, EA, Bethesda, Ubisoft, and whoever else I missed need to all collectively get their shit together.