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Dusk Developer David Szymanski: I'd rather pay Valve 30% and put up with their de facto monopoly than help Epic work towards their own (very obviously desired) monopoly (twitter.com)

submitted 1 year ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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If I'm honest, I don't disagree.

I would love for Steam to have **actual competition. Which is difficult, sure, but you could run a slightly less feature-rich store, take less of a cut, and pass the reduction fully on to consumers and you'd be an easy choice for many gamers.

But that's not what Epic is after. They tried to go hard after the sellers, figuring that if they can corner enough fo the market with exclusives the buyers will have to come. But they underestimated that even their nigh-infinite coffers struggle to keep up with the raw amount of games releasing, and also the unpredictability of the indie market where you can't really know what to buy as an exclusive.
Nevermind that buying one is a good way to make it forgotten.

So yeah, fully agreed. Compared to Epic, I vastly prefer Steam's 30% cut. As the consumer I pay the same anyways, and Steam offers lots of stuff for it like forums, a client that boots before the heat death of the universe, in-house streaming, library sharing, cloud sync that sometimes works.

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[+] [email protected] -6 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

That's a stupid take. "I'd rather contribute to an existing monopoly than a potential one" is just saying you'd rather support a monopoly than any other corporation. Every corporation seeks monopoly. None are our friends, but we should at least try to make them as small and friendly in any particular industry as we reasonably can.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I think the pseudo-quote you wanted to do the other way around.

The thing is, sure, I prefer buying things from say, GOG. But Epic is horrible, and that's even just from my consumer perspective with it's bad client, terrible discoverability and lack of forums or anything. So as a consumer I have no incentive to support Epic, no matter whether I want to give my money to Steam or another place.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

You're right, I did get the pseudo-quote backwards.

As far as customer experience, that's one thing, and that's valid. "I prefer to use Steam because it has features Epic doesn't, even if one's a monopoly" though is very different from the quote above, which is distinctly about supporting X company over Y company; not about product difference, but actual support.

Let's be real though, if Epic had literally just released Steam but with a good UI people would still boycott it, referencing xenophobic shit like "because china", angry at tim sweeney, complaining about another launcher, and anything else. The PC market has this really strange and uncomfortable adoration of Steam. It's console-warrior levels, really.

I don't disagree that EGS is a lackluster product in many ways, but it's pretty clear that the complaints about it by and far are simply justification for a pre-existing opinion, both because of predisposition towards steam, and against "the guys who made that stupid fortnite game".

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

referencing xenophobic shit like “because china”

Disliking a company that aids in genocide makes you "xenophobic"?

Content that Beijing deems “subversive” has also been forced to be removed from both platforms. Human rights experts are well aware of the ways that these apps have been utilized to spy on Uyghurs and other dissenting voices and are used to persecute these individuals and their family members. Information collected from WeChat can be enough to land one in a concentration camp or prison, as is the case for many Uyghurs who have contact with foreigners or family members who are abroad. Tencent, WeChat’s parent company, is thus clearly complicit in the genocide of Uyghurs, amongst other affronts on human rights. The United States administration has not been alone in acknowledging this, India has also banned far more Chinese apps than were addressed by the U.S. executive order on August sixth.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

You realize that Tencent doesn't own Epic. They have a minority stake in them, as they do bluehole, ubisoft, activision blizzard, platinum games, paradox interactive, fatshark, funcom, and discord. They also wholly or majority own supercell, grinding gear games, and riot games.

No discussion of these other companies devolves into saying that these companies personally aid in genocide. Why is that? As far as I can tell, it's just because a small contingency of gamers online don't like how popular fortnite is.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

So now its not xenophobia, it's because people don't like the popularity of Fortnite? How about lets not handwave all of Tencent's crimes against humanity with "you're just xenophobic" or "you just don't like Fortnite". Nobody of any good conscious should support that company or any of its owned companies (partially or otherwise).

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

Both are true. There can be multiple contributing factors, yes.

But yes, we shouldn't support corporations. To that point I wholeheartedly agree.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

referencing xenophobic shit like "because china", angry at tim sweeney,

What... the fuck are you talking about? You are lost in sauce, dude.

I would rather GOG be made the de facto alternative than Epic. The fact that we have approx. 1 grocery store nearby does not mean we should be excited a Walmart is being built.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

I'd rather neither, and that companies open up their own storefronts with standalone downloads. Unfortunately we're in the age of Walmarts for games.