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Comment by Pooge | Hacker News Reader

I've never understood this point.

Other developers can just make their own platform or distribute games themselves individually. Nobody wants to do that for obvious reasons.

There's clearly a network effect similar to Instagram, WhatsApp, Facebook and the likes. But apart from regulating for service interoperability, there's nothing you can do.

It's like claiming that Skype had a monopoly between 2008 and 2014. Just... Install something else then?

Valve is not buying other store makers nor actively sabotaging efforts to do so.

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> Valve is not buying other store makers nor actively sabotaging efforts to do so.

This is really key, when you see Epic bribing devs to get exclusivity, giving away games for free, they do this and still not succeed because they are actively hostile to their users.

Where is my Big Picture mode?

Where is my support of Linux?

They've been at it for years and yet still don't actually want to provide a service that is desirable to use.

I'd be happy if Epic Store wouldn't log me out on every attempt to play anything there.

I'm literally waiting for Satisfactory to go on Steam sale so I can buy it again and not have to deal with the Epic launcher for one game I bought on sale when the store launched. :)

>because they are actively hostile to their users.

>Where is my Big Picture mode?

>Where is my support of Linux?

Calling the lack of linux and TV support "hostile" is bit of a stretch. The two combined probably makes up 5% of the user base at most, and there are probably workarounds (eg. using wine or the regular interface)

I didn't.

I asked where are these basic features. Two separate parts to my comment.

The user hostile comes from Tim Sweeneys Twitter account where he openly mocks users who ask questions.

>The user hostile comes from Tim Sweeneys Twitter account where he openly mocks users who ask questions.

link?

This might be an example of what the OP was describing: https://i.redd.it/ua8lmu38f7k81.png

Besides that though Sweeney has pretty consistently been hostile to linux and it's users in the past, from discontinuing support after buying native linux games to disparaging it online. https://x.com/timsweeneyepic/status/964284402741149698?lang=... > Installing Linux is sort of the equivalent of moving to Canada when one doesn’t like US political trends. > Nope, we’ve got to fight for the freedoms we have today, where we have them today.

>This might be an example of what the OP was describing: https://i.redd.it/ua8lmu38f7k81.png

That counts as "mocking"? You might not agree with Sweeney or think he has a good point, but it's not remotely "mocking". Are Steam supporters really that thin skinned?

Do you really think that? All Steam users are buying games in Steam instead if getting them for free on Epic Games Store because they have a library on Steam, not because Steam is a better product?

You're even allowed to sell your game cheaper on other platforms (not Steam keys, separate keys for those platforms) so by all means charge the 30% more on Steam if you need to.

>You're even allowed to sell your game cheaper on other platforms (not Steam keys, separate keys for those platforms) so by all means charge the 30% more on Steam if you need to.

How many people would even bite, given the huge premium?

If you don't try,you will never know.

you are not allowed to sell cd keys cheaper than on steam

Do you have a source for that? I only know this [1] site laying out distribution of Steam keys

[1] https://partner.steamgames.com/doc/features/keys

"You should use Steam Keys to sell your game on other stores in a similar way to how you sell your game on Steam. It is important that you don’t give Steam customers a worse deal than Steam Key purchasers."

https://partner.steamgames.com/doc/features/keys

This only applies to steam keys sold off site, which is why the original comment specified non-steam keys.

> Other developers can just make their own platform or distribute games themselves individually. Nobody wants to do that for obvious reasons

Where "nobody" is specifically "no users". Lots of publishers tried doing exactly that, and most eventually gave up because users don't want to deal with extra launchers or platforms. Offering games on your own distribution channel is fine, but not being on Steam is going to hurt your sales a lot. Epic is really the only still-running attempt (except for GOG)

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