The article makes some good points. Most people downvoting it probably just see a title that attacks their favourite game distribution platform, if there even is such a thing.
Personally, I treat Steam like a rental service, because that’s what it is. Meaning I exclusively “buy” games on Steam at deep 80-90% discounts. So, when the enshittification inevitably hits the fan, I can jump ship without feeling like I’m loosing too much.
I’ll just link this reply. They lost me when they said “The lock-in effect with Steam is so great that [Epic] giving games away for free is not putting a sizable dent in Valve’s dominance.”
EDIT: Yeah the link says pretty much the same things (and more) than I did below.
I think it says more about Epic’s launcher and sales tactics than about Valve’s dominance. I mean, up to a certain point you can compensate your inferior product with a lower price point but if the trade-off is too high, then even giving something out for free doesn’t help. Epic’s launcher has been quite bad without any clear development in my eyes for a long time, and I can as well relate to the other commenter about not being able to use it natively on Linux. It’s just not something worth a few saved euros to put up with.
I do wonder what’s the Steam users’ demography nowadays. Are there so many adults who earn a decent salary that they can afford actually paying for their games and enjoy a working platform (Steam) instead of saving a buck and losing their hair on the rare occasion they have the time to play something? That can be a tough crowd to lure in with some occasional free games.
It doesn’t matter that Epic is giving away games that only run on a platform I don’t use. They won’t get my money until they get their heads out of their asses about Linux.
The article makes some good points. Most people downvoting it probably just see a title that attacks their favourite game distribution platform, if there even is such a thing.
Personally, I treat Steam like a rental service, because that’s what it is. Meaning I exclusively “buy” games on Steam at deep 80-90% discounts. So, when the enshittification inevitably hits the fan, I can jump ship without feeling like I’m loosing too much.
I’ll just link this reply. They lost me when they said “The lock-in effect with Steam is so great that [Epic] giving games away for free is not putting a sizable dent in Valve’s dominance.”
EDIT: Yeah the link says pretty much the same things (and more) than I did below.
I think it says more about Epic’s launcher and sales tactics than about Valve’s dominance. I mean, up to a certain point you can compensate your inferior product with a lower price point but if the trade-off is too high, then even giving something out for free doesn’t help. Epic’s launcher has been quite bad without any clear development in my eyes for a long time, and I can as well relate to the other commenter about not being able to use it natively on Linux. It’s just not something worth a few saved euros to put up with.
I do wonder what’s the Steam users’ demography nowadays. Are there so many adults who earn a decent salary that they can afford actually paying for their games and enjoy a working platform (Steam) instead of saving a buck and losing their hair on the rare occasion they have the time to play something? That can be a tough crowd to lure in with some occasional free games.
It doesn’t matter that Epic is giving away games that only run on a platform I don’t use. They won’t get my money until they get their heads out of their asses about Linux.