this post was submitted on 01 Nov 2024
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Respectfully, using Epic means using yet another platform. I have games spread across Steam, GOG, itch, Amazon, Ubisoft, and probably at least one more. If I buy a game on Epic, chances are I'll forget about it, so I don't bother.
This isn't to mention that the one game I do have on Epic, GTA V, has 3 different launchers when used through Epic (when it wants to actually open). It doesn't do anything Steam doesn't and doesn't do many of the things Steam does. I don't even really love Steam either, because it crashes constantly on Debian for me, but I already have 500+ games there and it's got ~20 years on Epic. I'm also a Linux user, so Proton is essentially one of the only ways I can reliably play most of my library.
Platform lock-in should be a consideration for companies, even though it sucks, because it's an objective reflection of the reality of the games industry. Remedy knew that they would have fewer players going Epic-exclusive but seemed to underestimate to what degree that might hurt sales; this past couple of years have been sort of bad for the average person, so maybe they used previous sales data that didn't really account for lower levels of consumer spending.
The game wouldn't have been a massive success even with 30% more money than what they ended up earning. They didn't want to pay the fee so they didn't, that's their choice and they were free to make it; the result isn't Valve's fault, they weren't involved at all. When it's on GOG or Steam, maybe I'll buy it on sale, but at this point there's no reason to lock myself into another janky platform. I did this with Control: the GOG version of Control is great and I don't have to use Epic.
I hear what you're saying, but gamers in this thread (and every thread), are demanding that it come out on Steam, not on GOG, which makes them a huge part of the problem.
Lock in exists partially because gamers have lionized Valve for throwing them trinkets and refuse to use anything else, while Valve has designed their platform around a mandatory launcher and done what they can to lock players into it.
If you check this list and this list, many games on Steam will actually launch without Steam running. ~~I don't think I can say the same for a lot of other platforms, excluding GOG and itch, of course.~~
I don't disagree with you about why it exists and that it's bad, but the fact remains that it does exist and Remedy and Epic, as companies, need to face that when making these decisions and factor that into sales projections accordingly. They should have known what they were getting into, and forcing people into using Epic isn't really the answer to the lock-in problem anyway.
Edit: Turns out a bunch of other platforms have DRM-free games too, TIL.
I don't want to use Windows, but play on my Linux Gaming PC. This works really nice because of the work, Valve does on Proton and gives back to Wine. GoG is cool, but they don't help in regards to this. The Epic fucks (hehe) are actually hostile towards Linux, so before I would buy there, I would pirate their games or just not play the game at all.
When the Steam enshittification starts, I will be one of the first to say fuck them, too.