But... you're basically arguing for more exclusivity by effectively boycotting the majority of products that choose to release on the Epic store, as most of them will include EOS functionality. Why is steamworks fine?

I'm a valve fanboy but they're only company that's even got a prayer of monopolizing the PC games market. Epic is if anything an anti-monopolistic force here -- the Unreal Engine is the Epic product that's threatening market dominance.

[–] Cris16228@lemmy.today 1 points 2 months ago (1 children)

No because a lot of people hate the exclusives and they don't buy those games, devs will realize it (one day). Look at how Ubi went back to steam, Square too🤷‍♂️

Honestly, a eos+steamworks would be better 🤷‍♂️ but even a simple "cross platform" (epic/steam) would work.

Is epic anti-monopolistic? Are you sure?

[–] verdigris@lemmy.ml 1 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (1 children)

I agree that the exclusivity is a bummer, but on the other hand multiple games exist today that would not without Epic's funding. I just don't buy games on the Epic store (everything I own on there was from a free giveaway). When they come to Steam, I get to buy them on my platform of choice, and the injection of capital means they're much further along than they would be otherwise, if they would even exist without the funding. I just think of it as an Early Access period.

Yes, from an objective standpoint I would of course prefer an open cross-platform standard, but while it's the sort of thing I could see Steam adopting and even contributing to, Epic definitely wants the lock-in. And while Epic would obviously love to be a monopoly, as long as they have less market share than Steam, they're an anti-monopolistic force as a direct competitor to Steam.

In this scenario, boycotting games that include the EOS SDK is a pointless gesture and the only reason to do so is if you're worried about the telemetry in the SDK, which from the documentation and from Satisfactory dedicated server logs is pretty minimal unless you log into Epic through the game. It sounds like your main issue is the exclusivity, which has nothing to do with the SDK, and would be effectively "voted against with your wallet" by just not spending money on the Epic store. But as long as Epic keeps offering significant chunks of cash for timed exclusivity, it will remain an extremely attractive deal for any game without significant pre-relrase hype.

[–] Cris16228@lemmy.today 1 points 2 months ago

Sorry! Honestly I like this loooong talk

Maybe but why make them exclusive? Look at the recent alan wake 2. A complete flop because they released on a platform no one wants to buy and remedy recoup the dev costs from it.

If you buy them day one on Steam doesn't that mean you're fine to wait and tell devs/pubs that exclusivity is good? They get money from epic for going exclusive then on Steam again, doesn't it incentives more exclusives?

I wouldn't call it a "competitor". To be a competitor you should offer something that people can like like new features or copy stuff others have and make it better, I guess? Why don't you make something useful like helping/funding part of the handheld/linux development? Wouldn't that be awesome instead of throwing money at will hoping to get a few users to use your (IMO) inferior platform?

Look at what they did: bought rocket league, removed from steam (WHY?) and transformed it into a garbage shit requiring epic account. I don't own it nor I've ever played it (if we don't count the free trial downloaded somewhere).

No, Im not gonna trust someone who does what is currently doing right now, like paying for exclusives, so if the dll method doesn't work im gonna refund it. I don't care how pointless that is.

My main issue is exclusives (especially the timed exclusives from PS, but 🤷‍♂️) and also the person behind Epic. There's nothing that makes me want to use the store or have anything to do with them.