Hacker News Reader

Comment by lakomen | Hacker News Reader

I don't see epic being a better alternative to Steam. Steam sucks, is anti consumer but Epic is even worse. They don't even allow communication or rating. Isn't Epic also mayorly Chinese owned? And their constant pushing that I should install and run their service all the time, even try to trick me into installing it is also very suspicious. I will not run some game selling platform's service in the background all the time, even if it's just on a gaming machine. Bad enough my graphics drivers run harmful spyware in the background (nvidia). Then their return policy is the same as Valve's 2h and I have to waive my 14 day right of withdrawal from the purchase. Replace shit with more smelly shit.

View on HN

Steam might not be perfect, but compared to any other option I can think of it's not only better, but far, far better.

Agreed. I haven't come across a store/library system in any ecosystem that I'd prefer. In fact, I feel like Steam is a model for other places like e-books, movies & tv streaming, etc.

Is Steam perfect? No. But Amazon Prime gives me the shivers after they arbitrarily pulled movies from libraries after purchase intentionally and without refund. Audible/Kindle tries selling me while I'm in my library, etc.

> Steam might not be perfect, but compared to any other option I can think of it's not only better, but far, far better.

What about GOG? Their client is optional, you can download full installers for offline archiving, no DRM.

First option that comes to mind that is clearly superior.

IMO GOG is great for single-player games. For multiplayer, the Steam integration for some a nice bonus and others a necessity.

I had to re-buy Stardew Valley on Steam because the GoG version only had "connect to IP" (I cannot run GOG Galaxy on Linux) and all of my friends were using Steam versions that had other connect options.

GOG is definitely superior as far as respecting the rights of consumers is concerned, but their web store and library client (Galaxy) doesn't offer nearly as many features as Steam. Things like hosting mods and making them super easy to download/install through Steam Workshop. Or things like streaming gameplay to a different device (or even streaming your normal desktop allowing you to use it from a different device so you aren't just limited to Steam games). Or WINE emulation on Linux with minimal configuration needed. Steam provides some legitimate value-add features that pretty much no one else does, making it much more than just a storefront.

The thing I was going to mention is the Linux compatibility layer. It's great.

GOG offers a superior license (DRM-free), perhaps, but not client.

Steam's integrated multiplayer makes online games seamless, cloud save works better, the autopatcher beats offline installers anyday, its integrated Big Picture mode is great for TV or phone play, the built-in streaming works well, the built-in text and audio chat is useful, the Workshop allows seamless and fast mod installs vs having to use something like NexusMods, the reviews system is well implemented and waaaaay more informative than Amazon's, Proton is a godsend for Linux and the Deck, the built-in web browser overlay is handy for looking things up in the game, Family Share + offline mode is awesome despite having DRM, the sales are incredible (especially from 3rd party Steam resellers on isthereanydeal.com), the support is fast and human and very fair, GeForce Now integration is great when you're away from the gaming desktop, Valve is a gamer-centric and innovative company (Index, Deck, Controller, etc.)

And that's just for the player side. From the dev side the Steamworks API takes care of a lot of multiplayer and other stuff that normally is a huge PITA to reimplement.

As a client, it's just a MUCH better offering than either GOG or Epic or Microsoft or any of the other crap launchers. Like, not even in the same league... the others are just 90s-style download managers, while Steam is its own ecosystem. Despite not being a monopoly, they still continue to dominate the PC gaming landscape because they are just THAT good.

GOG is a pretty good company with a good store and good management of classic games.

But steam, for a 30% cut of a dev's income, will provide; Free save backups, free multiplayer and friends list management and apis, workshop support for modding, free keys to sell on other platforms or give away, a store that actually managed to reduce it's serious junk clutter problems for many people, VR runtime, HUGE controller apis that bring incredible functionality for remapping and macros, a system for game streaming and remote coop play, easy steam deck distribution now, a complete patch management and distribution system etc.

Basically Valve exposes a lot of features to game devs when you release on their storefront, and a huge amount of those features are just straight huge wins for gamers and consumers.

Either developers are locking their users into Epic/Steam/Apple/PlayStation in exchange for services/users, or they're rolling your own solution with PlayFab/Nakama/Pragma and are stuck footing the bill once their game fades away. Both business models are bad for developers and gamers.

Now for the sameless self plug: we wanted to solve these problems but with a business model that primarily serves developers at Rivet (W23).

Instead, we offer cross-platform console-like services as a REST API for free (friends, parties, leaderboards) and only charge for services that help developers build/grow their games (multiplayer servers, matchmaking, CDN, database). Our #1 priority is providing the best services possible to developers. There's no incentive to rent-seek or lock in your users since we're a services company, not a platform company. Any data your users generate is yours to keep.

Regarding operating legacy multiplayer servers: We plan to let users pay for their own game servers instead of developers fronting the cost. This way, developers can operate legacy games at no cost by letting users "own" their servers and easily enable custom game servers. It's like allowing users to self-host games but without having to open-source your software. Plus, many games can't run as a standalone binary and need the supporting infrastructure.

We're still in closed beta, but there's more info here if you're curious: https://rivet.gg/developer/

Steam doesn't feel anti-consumer to this consumer.

It's a host DRM, and many games also integrate with steamworks, making it an embedded DRM that can prevent your games from launching without a connection even if they otherwise wouldn't need one. As others have said, this is inferior to both GOG, and physical media, except a large percentage of physical media now also does not function without the aid of online DRM.

inferior to digital media my ass, DRM on digital media hosing my linux partition is what pushed me to exclusively use steam and gog.

I'd say the cd key and cd check of physical media is more anti-consumer than Steam. Of course there were third party patches to remove the cd check, but that's no different than making a way around steam drm.

The DRM built into steam is pretty purposely nerfed. Supposedly it is trivial to bypass, which is why many game companies put 3rd party DRM in as well. If valve dies tomorrow, it will be way easier to revive most of my steam library than anything on origin or EA whatever-its-called-this-week.

They also just have like 20 years of clear results, consumer non-hostility, and goodwill

I get it, I understand, but I like the product they've given and I like that it continues to improve.

> alternative to Steam. Steam sucks... @lakomen

Steam is the best content delivery platform for games. Developers have spoken with their content and users have spoken with their accounts.

It's not as good as it could be, sure... But, what is?

Even EA brought back titles they'd removed from Steam, as it hurt their bottom line.

Players prefer Steam over all other CDNs. The numbers assure us of this.

Valve will refund games past the 2h window if you have a reasonable reason. I had to the other day when I just couldn't get a game running despite following all of the community suggestions. Ended up going over the 2h window without realizing it and they approved the refund without issue.

Valve's refund policy before they made it better was probably the closest to anti-consumer you could call them. In many countries it was straight up illegal and had to get put through court before they would give you the rights you had as an australian citizen for example.

Epic Games gives a free game every single week and has done so for the past couple years at least. Many of these are fairly big titles. Around Christmas they have done a free game every day.

They’re very pro indie dev on the unreal side. I don’t mind steam but epic is clearly the better choice for me.

Give a game... take a game...

Shrug.

I’ve enjoyed Civ 6, Control, Dead By Daylight, Darkest Dungeon, 20XX, Remnant, Pathfinder Kingmaker, Star Wars Squadron, Hitman, Tomb Raider, Enter the Gungeon, Darkwood, Gloomhaven, Terraforming Mars, Blair Witch, XCOM 2, Scythe, Verdun, Ring of Pain, and many other titles all for free.

I don’t like them dropping support for these games but it’s still a huge net positive for me, and I’d try to buy everything on epic if I’m going to buy it accordingly.

Tencent has a minority stake, Tim Sweeney is still majority shareholder.

> Isn't Epic also mayorly Chinese owned?

By Chinese you mean Tencent? Tencent is south-african owned.

Tencent is Chinese and has its hq in China.

> By Chinese you mean Tencent? Tencent is south-african owned. @est

> Founded in 1998 with its headquarters in Shenzhen, China,...

> ...Tencent has been listed on the Stock Exchange of Hong Kong since 2004.

> https://www.tencent.com/en-us/about.html#about-con-1

Since we are talking about how Epic was invested by Tencent, the same rule applies here:

https://www.ft.com/content/1270c7e4-95e4-406f-b712-c32341524...

South African internet group Naspers, Tencent’s biggest shareholder

In China, the government is more powerful than capital. No matter where their money comes from, Tencent is at its heart a Chinese company, with all the shenanigans that entails.

> the government is more powerful than capital

That depends how you perceive government. The Chinese government is just one of the the executive branches of CCP holdings.

That's a strange way to look at sovereign wealth. Their government has power far beyond the budget and no real checks and balances.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com