Control is FREE on Epic Games Store

I wasn’t really comparing Steam with Epic, I was comparing the whole business model of theirs. Steam isn’t really a developer friendly marketplace, but it gives great chances to starting video game developers, that don’t have a huge team behind them or millions in their backpockets. Game developers, like Yai Gameworks, have started and have stayed on Steam marketplace to sell their games. This is mostly because of the types of games they release. Pretty much all of the indie games in Epic have had some kind of an success in Steam and that’s why they are on the platform.

It’s completely true that the catalogue of Steam has become what it is. From Hitler Hentai to other Hentai, it has really stoop low. It’s completely true, that Epic games are at least somewhat half decent, but most of them are the definitions of bland. There are fantastic games out there, but the biggest problem for a basic consumer is the fact there is no rating system. For this reason, your 34 years old neighbour Jack might buy NBA 2K21 out of curiosity for 60 bucks, letting him believe that it’s a great game. Then he most likely doesn’t like it and if he has played it for more than 2 hours, he can’t get a refund. It doesn’t mean that Steam or GOG actually provide useful review ratings for their products, but a basic Jack at least has some sort of a knowledge, that people have liked the game.

I’m more criticizing the US business model, rather than the Epic business model. The thing that in my opinion just makes Steam a better platform is the more customer friendly business, much more wider catalogue of games and the community function. Both of these companies have the 2 weeks and 2 hours refund policy, which is really customer unfriendly. For that reason, I wouldn’t compare these two companies for their basic ideas, instead I would compare Epic with GOG.

GOG has a DRM free service, a whole month’s refund policy, a whole gaming community, tons of goodies from buying a game, like soundtracks and making of footage, that are also DRM free. GOG also provides tons of older games, oldest one going as far as 1982. It also has bunch of sales, that go as cheap, if not cheaper, than in other platforms. GOG also provides games that can’t be buyed from anywhere else, like MGS 1-2 and SH4. All the games work in older and newer computers and thanks to the DRM freeness, you don’t even need a damn launcher. Also, GOG isn’t a pinnacle of micro transaction, by which I mean that they don’t sell micro transaction/P2W games. Also, rating system.

As we can see from these points, GOG is consumer friendly in almost any way possible, it’s for both older and younger gamers, and they have a wider selection of great games, which is probably greater than in any other platform.

I’m not saying that Epic should be more like Steam, I’m saying Steam and Epic should be more like GOG. But, I still stand on my point, when I say that Epic is poor excuse to rival these companies. Sure, it probably will become a big thing in the future, but they have to get their heads out of the freebies and start to actually improving their business.

Meh, everyone has a right to their own opinion.

But frankly yours seems wrong^^

Your compelling counterpoints nearly have me convinced. >_>

Or at least they might if you ever post them. Probably not though, since it would likely be hard to make a solid argument that Valve has been doing nearly as much for gamers and developers as they once were. A decade ago, Steam was great, doing their PC gaming platform far better than anyone else, developing top-tier games and a capable game engine, hosting noteworthy seasonal sales, and adding useful features to their client while maintaining good backward compatibility.

But around the time of the release of games like CS:GO and DOTA 2 a decade ago, they took a turn for the worse. Any game development shifted away from new games and moved toward maximizing profits from micro-transactions and the trading of digital goods within their existing online titles. Games like Half-life and Portal, while hugely popular, cost a lot to develop and were not able to make the same kind of post-sale revenue, so those got quietly dropped. And since the vast majority of Valve’s profits now came from their 30% cut of the sale price of other developer’s games, game development in general got largely eliminated at the company, which had previously been one of the highest-rated PC game developers. They decided, why bother making games when they could just take a third of the sale price of nearly all PC games released by other companies with minimal cost or effort on their part. Everything became about maximizing profits.

That’s not to say Steam is “bad”, but they’ve been stagnating and arguably getting progressively worse in most areas for years. And over that same time, more competitors have hit the market, in many cases offering better incentives to both gamers and developers alike. But Valve has largely ignored the competition so far, since they know they still hold the majority of the market, and that they still have a large number of users who are unwilling to obtain a game on another platform. I suspect that Valve may improve as they start seeing a sizable portion of their users move elsewhere for many of their gaming purchases though.