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Comment by AlexandrB | Hacker News Reader

I have conflicting feelings about the Epic Games Store. On the one hand, Valve definitely needs to have competitors to avoid the kind of "enshittification" we see in other tech products. On the other hand, Epic's tactics - especially securing exclusives - have been quite anti-consumer. Epic's Fortnite has also popularized a bunch of monetization tactics that, frankly, suck.

I guess what I'm saying is: use GoG whenever possible.

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Valve is a private company, and therefore much less susceptible to enshittification, at least in theory. That's bound to come crashing down when GabeN retires, though.

This is the real worry. Steam and valve are extremely consumer friendly and many of their decisions feel like they take the user into account before the accountants, contrary to many other video game products today.

I really worry when GabeN leaves that the company will either go public or be bought out by PE/VC and then the last bastion of goodwill in video games will die and fast painful death.

Broadly speaking I agree, but as it stands as a privately held company, they seem to be the antidote to enshittification and anti-consumer behavior brought on by publicly traded conglomerates.

Speaking of which, GoG Galaxy. Certainly hasn't gotten better.

There is no way to enter the market in any meaningful way without exclusives. It's not the end of the world to have two launchers.

GoG/CD Projekt Red did it somehow. Even their own games are not exclusive to the platform.

Gog's market-share is not substantial. Considering that non DRM software is very compelling, the Gog example actually just proves my point, you need exclusives to move the needle. It's a fact.

Apparently they didn't move the needle enough.

So perhaps it's a more accurate to say that the exclusives cost Epic much more than they ever returned. In money and trust.

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