If I had to pick between buying a game on Steam or Epic, I would pick the one which did some good things for consumers over the one that stuck their middle finger up at us.
There’s no denying that Valve’s contributions to DXVK, WINE, KDE, and Linux are a self-serving way to ensure Steam remains relevant after Microsoft locks Windows into a walled garden. Even so, the end result was an overall benefit for consumers. We would have had something like Proton eventually, but it would not have come nearly as quickly without their financial backing.
What has Epic done? A bunch of free games that I still don’t have enough time to play and would not have picked up anyways, great. That doesn’t make up for the rest of their wannabe-monopoly, anticonsumer practices like making exclusivity deals to railroad people into using their store by making sure consumers are denied a choice.
Fuck Epic, and fuck Tim Sweeney’s self-aggrandizing attitude. If he actually gave a shit about anything other than his ego, he would have spent his time leading Epic Games to challenge “the Steam monopoly” by providing a better customer experience, not posting on Twitter acting like the messiah of PC gaming.
You make some good points about Valve’s bread crumbs, but my point still stands that this is an article with no other purpose than to reinforce the opinions of those who already had their minds made up about this. The dev possibly included, or inciting the opinions of those who have.
It’s a circlejerk post and article. Just because Valve sucks slightly less doesn’t mean we need to treat them like god’s gaming storefront. If people weren’t already on the “fuck Epic” bandwagon this is a non-story.
If it was GOG and not EGS, the reaction would probably be very different. But, because people already hate Epic (for good reason), writing an article that appeals to schadenfreude makes for some easy ad revenue.
People also shouldn’t be idolizing corporations. They’re not our friends; we’re only a means to an end for them. The best case scenario for us is mutualism, and the worst case is parasitism. All it takes is a change in leadership or a change in circumstances to go from one to the other, and a constant need for growth encourages the parasitic enshittification we’re well acquainted with.
If I had to pick between buying a game on Steam or Epic, I would pick the one which did some good things for consumers over the one that stuck their middle finger up at us.
There’s no denying that Valve’s contributions to DXVK, WINE, KDE, and Linux are a self-serving way to ensure Steam remains relevant after Microsoft locks Windows into a walled garden. Even so, the end result was an overall benefit for consumers. We would have had something like Proton eventually, but it would not have come nearly as quickly without their financial backing.
What has Epic done? A bunch of free games that I still don’t have enough time to play and would not have picked up anyways, great. That doesn’t make up for the rest of their wannabe-monopoly, anticonsumer practices like making exclusivity deals to railroad people into using their store by making sure consumers are denied a choice.
Fuck Epic, and fuck Tim Sweeney’s self-aggrandizing attitude. If he actually gave a shit about anything other than his ego, he would have spent his time leading Epic Games to challenge “the Steam monopoly” by providing a better customer experience, not posting on Twitter acting like the messiah of PC gaming.
You make some good points about Valve’s bread crumbs, but my point still stands that this is an article with no other purpose than to reinforce the opinions of those who already had their minds made up about this. The dev possibly included, or inciting the opinions of those who have.
It’s a circlejerk post and article. Just because Valve sucks slightly less doesn’t mean we need to treat them like god’s gaming storefront. If people weren’t already on the “fuck Epic” bandwagon this is a non-story.
Agreed on both points.
If it was GOG and not EGS, the reaction would probably be very different. But, because people already hate Epic (for good reason), writing an article that appeals to schadenfreude makes for some easy ad revenue.
People also shouldn’t be idolizing corporations. They’re not our friends; we’re only a means to an end for them. The best case scenario for us is mutualism, and the worst case is parasitism. All it takes is a change in leadership or a change in circumstances to go from one to the other, and a constant need for growth encourages the parasitic enshittification we’re well acquainted with.