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What's up with Epic Games? (lemmy.world)

submitted 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) by ElPussyKangaroo@lemmy.world to c/games@lemmy.world

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I can't seem to find that one comment explaining the issue with them...

But for the sake of promoting conversation on Lemmy, what's the issue with Epic, and why should I go for Steam or GoG?

Note: Piracy is not an answer. I understand why, and do agree to a certain extent... But sometimes, the happiness gained by playing something from a legitimate source is far greater 🥹... coming from someone who could never ever afford to purchase games, nor could my parents... Hence I've always played bootleg, or pirated games.

TL;DR

What's wrong?

Their launcher has a terrible UI AND UX.
They make exclusive deals with studios to prevent other platforms from getting games. (Someone mentioned that Steam did the same thing in their infancy. Also, I have another question; why is it ok for Sony and Microsoft to make exclusive games for their consoles but not ok for these PC platforms to do so?)
They have been invested in by a Chinese company, Tencent. (Someone mentioned that it isn't that big of a deal, but idk.)
They are actively anti-linux for some reason.

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[-] Glide@lemmy.ca 11 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

I want to note that Steam isn't inherently a DRM platform, as there are many games on Steam which are DRM free. Even ones that require the Steam backend can be bundled with Steamworks, serving all the same backend requirements without Steam needing to be installed on the machine.

[-] ares35@kbin.social 4 points 11 months ago

yea, they steam has some drm-free games available... but steam is a drm platform.. one that also helped normalize one-time-use codes and tying 'purchases' to a non-transferable online account. valve did more to shred the used pc game market than any other company.

[-] Rose@lemmy.world 1 points 11 months ago

Epic has a significantly higher percentage of games confirmed to be DRM-free.

[-] JamesFire@lemmy.world 0 points 11 months ago

So if we just assume this random wiki with no sourcing is correct...

Steam has more games than everyone else, DRM on Steam is the developer/publisher's choice, Steam still has more DRM-free games than Epic does, and how many of the ones Epic has are exclusives that don't count?

[-] Rose@lemmy.world 1 points 11 months ago

Many of the articles do have references on the DRM status. Here's an example indicating verification by a staff member. I personally tested a bunch of the games for DRM and noted it back when I contributed. Until recently, most of the games released on Epic were DRM-free. Even the Sony games were notably DRM-free on Epic before they were released on GOG. Nowadays, it's more common for the new ones to use EOS and have it function as DRM.

[-] Kecessa@sh.itjust.works 0 points 11 months ago

https://www.pcgamingwiki.com/wiki/List_of_DRM-free_games

The Origin store proportionally has more DRM free games than Steam...

[-] JamesFire@lemmy.world 0 points 11 months ago

So if we just assume this random wiki with no sourcing is correct…

Steam has more games than everyone else, DRM on Steam is the developer/publisher’s choice, Steam still has more DRM-free games than Origin does, and how many of the ones Origin has are exclusives that don’t count?