• Patapon Enjoyer@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      More like Costco selling hotdogs at a loss to get people to leave the store with a television.

      Just get the hotdogs and leave.

      • gullible@kbin.social
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        1 year ago

        But the hotdogs are right next to their hvac guy, and tubes of meat and regrettable decisions tend to go hand in hand for me.

  • Duamerthrax@lemmy.ml
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    1 year ago

    Steam: Here’s a discount.

    Epic: You’re not allowed to buy or play any Unreal Tournament games anymore.

    • RedditWanderer@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Steam: Here’s a sale on a bunch of catered stuff

      Epic Games: Here’s a premium game and you cannot purchase it on any other platform because we paid the the dev to take the money and run.

      • BartsBigBugBag@lemmy.tf
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        1 year ago

        Steam: here’s a platform. We know some corpos won’t release games without DRM, so here’s our in-house solution that’s non-intrusive, but if you don’t want to put DRM in your game, we won’t force you. Want to include a backup installer? Cool. No worries. Oh you don’t have solid internet? That’s cool, if you get the games installed somehow, you can use offline mode indefinitely with no issues, sorry it took us so long to work out the bugs.

        Epic: YOU MUST YSE OUR SHITTY DRM FOR ANY GAME RELEASED ON OUR PLATFORM, AND YOU MUST BE ONLINE AT ALL TIMES OR YOU CANNOT PLAY THE GAMES YOU PURCHASED.

          • CileTheSane@kbin.social
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            1 year ago

            Right, everytime I decide I’m done with a company I make a point of keeping up on what they’re doing…

            • Syndic@feddit.de
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              1 year ago

              If you intent to make general statements about them, it would be good to do so, yes. Else you could look silly if your statement is outdated.

              • CileTheSane@kbin.social
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                1 year ago

                If what you said was true at the time you don’t look silly at all, because people don’t follow companies they decide they are done with.

                If it’s outdated the reasonable response is simply informing people it’s out dated. Expecting them to keep up with a latest news of a company they don’t like makes you look silly.

                • Syndic@feddit.de
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                  1 year ago

                  If what you said was true at the time you don’t look silly at all, because people don’t follow companies they decide they are done with.

                  That’s only true if you actually state it as such. It’s really easy to clarify such a statement with “Back when I last checked …” or “Years ago it was …”

            • Kecessa@sh.itjust.works
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              1 year ago

              Well, don’t talk about them if you don’t because you don’t know what you’re talking about. You’re like an old man saying that a new computer sucks because it doesn’t have a Voodoo card inside.

              • CileTheSane@kbin.social
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                1 year ago

                “I don’t purchase from comapny X ever since they did Y” is a perfectly reasonable thing to say when people are talking about company X. The reasonable response to someone saying that is simply “They don’t do Y anymore, they haven’t done that since [date]”, not “HOW DARE YOU SHARE THE REASON YOU STOPPED USING COMPANY X IF YOU HAVEN’T BEEN FOLLOWING EVERYTHING THEY’VE DONE FOR THE PAST COUPLE YEARS!”

          • BartsBigBugBag@lemmy.tf
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            1 year ago

            Honestly, you might be able to these days. I haven’t interacted with the Epic app in years though, and you couldn’t last I tried.

      • MasterNerd@lemm.ee
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        1 year ago

        Steam: here’s the launcher. It opens in a few minutes

        Epic: You better go get yourself a coffee with that money you saved on the free game cause we’re gonna be here a while

      • Kecessa@sh.itjust.works
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        1 year ago

        Oh so exactly what Steam did to implant itself and what gamers were complaining about because it would “kill publishers and physical copies” way back when?

        • HELM108@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          The only game I could find that was arguably a third party exclusive for steam was Darwinia in 2005, and they weren’t paid by Valve to do so, which pretty much scuttles the comparison.

          If you meant first party exclusivity then sure Valve does that with their own games, as does Epic and others. First party exclusivity isn’t the problem here though, it’s the third party kind instead.

          • Kecessa@sh.itjust.works
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            1 year ago

            You think Steam doesn’t users tactics to make it so publishers only release games on their service thus driving out competition and bringing in more money? Come on.

            Some retailers refused to sell games because they required the installation of Steam to play, that’s what I call exclusivity.

            They had to be sued left and right because of their return policy, they’ve forced devs to sell games at the same price on other platforms in order to have their game on Steam.

            Had Steam been in another industry they would have been forced to split up their services because of how big they got.

            But hey, Epic bad.

              • Kecessa@sh.itjust.works
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                1 year ago

                It’s funny because there’s this function on Epic where you can enter a code and it claims a game on it… Oh and will you look at that, they have something called Mod Interface… It’s as if you didn’t know what you’re talking about…

                Heck, I give you an example of Steam manipulating prices, which goes against consumer interests, and you just skip right over that, funny how that works, right? How about developers interests then? 30% cut vs 17%? No guaranteed income for devs vs exclusivity contracts that guarantees an income to small devs thus making sure they actually stay in business?

                What’s funny is that you’re exactly the same as all the people who were complaining about Steam when it came out and that vowed to boycott it forever.

                Your loss bud, I’ve got thousands worth of free games (the vast majority DRM free) while you’re in your corner bitching and wanting the industry centralized in Valve’s hands.

                • CileTheSane@kbin.social
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                  1 year ago

                  I’ve got thousands worth of free games

                  So what’s the developer’s cut on a game you got for free? Or are you not nearly as concerned about developers as you pretend to be for the sake of your argument?

  • whathis@lemm.ee
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    1 year ago

    yeah i don’t get the hate for the epic store, who tf is annoyed by free games. And the Store isn’t that bad sure it doesn’t have as many functions as steam, but thats not necessarily bad steam has a lot of useless stuff. As a store the experience with epic is much more streamlined

    • BudgieMania@kbin.social
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      1 year ago

      For me, the main concern is that Epic doesn’t have a system of purchasable keys, even after all these years. Most stores in PC have had a system with keys that has allowed users to purchase games from 3d party sites such as GreenManGaming and the like. That system has been one of the key reasons why prices have stayed in check in the platform, and why cool stuff like HumbleBundles exists.

      Without this kind of system, every time a game is exclusive to the Epic platform, it, in effect, has a single price point with no possible competition or alternative, which is no different than a console ecosystem… And a lot of the pricing on those is not great, to say the least.

      Until they have that, supporting the growth and consolidation of that store would be potentially shooting myself in the foot as a consumer.

    • mestari@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Tencent, a Chinese company is a major owner of Epic. Westerners simply hate Chinese owned tech due to political reasons. Huawei and especially TikTok are other examples.

      • ciko22i3@sopuli.xyz
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        1 year ago

        Yes, purely political reasons, there is no other reason to be wary of proprietary chinese software.

        • mestari@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          Of course there are other concerns but politics is the main one. There’s little reason to think for example Samsung, Instagram or even Steam are any more safer than the previously mentioned Chinese owned alternatives. They all collect, store and sell every bit of data they possibly can benefit from.

      • Cylusthevirus@kbin.social
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        1 year ago

        Mass surveillance and flagrant human rights violations are now “”““political reasons.””“” In other news, nothing happened at Tiananmen Square on June 4, 1989.

      • Duamerthrax@lemmy.ml
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        1 year ago

        I hate Tiktok because it’s spyware. Show me the source code to prove me wrong.

        I hate Epic because they abandoned the Unreal and Unreal Tournament series, delisted from any store(including single player games) and turned off the Master Server preventing official multiplayer.

        I hate AAA game developers because of what the MBAs did to milk every cent of out of their customers.

    • ShaunaTheDead@kbin.social
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      1 year ago

      Epic Games hasn’t done it much lately, but when they first launched they paid a few big games to be Epic Games Store exclusives which is obviously anti-consumer behaviour. That and they’re owned by China, so the chances of your data being funneled out to China is practically 100%. Also, Epic has historically been critical of gaming on Linux with the CEO going so far as to say that Linux users are a bunch of whiners and that Epic will never support Linux just to spite them. A very immature response to say the least.

      • nodiet@feddit.de
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        1 year ago

        Tencent owns a 40% share of epic. While that is really considerable, it does not mean they are “owned by China”. Tim Sweeney is the majority shareholder.

  • CassowaryTom
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    1 year ago

    I’m old and out-of-the-loop. What are they giving away? I dont see it on their website. But again, I’m old. And kind of stupid.

    • 0xb@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      don’t be so hard on yourself. over time, we all just stop paying so much attention to every single internet drama, it’s tiring and we have better stuff to do.

      and the point is that epic games has been really liberal with the freebies for their users ever since they set up shop as a competitor to steam. they give away a game every couple of weeks and even more on certain special seasons, including triple a games. someone following them since the begging must have a library well over a hundred games now, completely for free. despite that, they are finding very hard to find sympathy and market share among certain sectors of the gaming community, because their store is just not at the level of steam and some other questionable practices, even so far as to still be operating at a loss even now years later. you can see the giveaway games just below the current discounts at the home page or in the free games page almost at the top https://store.epicgames.com/en-US/free-games and of you use telegram there’s a channel that notify you every time there’s something new for free https://t.me/epicfreegames

      • CassowaryTom
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        1 year ago

        I think that I forgot to say it at the time, but thanks for your response. You helped to clarify the issue for me.

      • WrittenWeird@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        Key statement here - “operating at a loss”. Interest rates are climbing and cheap capital is a thing of the past now. They need to become profitable. If they don’t, the Epic Store and all those libraries of free games might just disappear.

        Any one company is at risk of this as well, but Valve has been doing this for a long time, so they’ve built trust.

      • CassowaryTom
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        1 year ago

        Thanks for taking the time to explain, that was very informative. I’m not hard on myself, btw. Im a 45 year old white guy who thinks he’s hot shit. Thanks for the encouragement, though.

      • profilelost@discuss.tchncs.de
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        1 year ago

        There’s lists online of all the titles if you are curious. You might be lucky and see some of them again, it happened a few times that they brought back previously given games, too :)

    • Smor@feddit.de
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      1 year ago

      On the Epic Games Store they always have one or two games that users can claim for free (and keep forever). They change the games they offer for free every few weeks or so (or on some holidays even daily). Sometimes these are really awesome ones and sometimes they suck :) Currently you can get The Elder Scrolls Online for free. They are doing this for some years now and now I have a huge selection of games that I haven’t payed a single dollar for.

  • FlappyBubble@lemmy.ml
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    1 year ago

    I have a Epic acciunt and claim all the free games. No play time. The intention is just to do what I can to hurt them economically. Hopefully the creators of the games akao get something.

  • interdimensionalmeme@lemmy.ml
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    1 year ago

    Please install my innocent game launcher, yes of course it needs to be root to install games and prevent cheating. I’ll give you a free game if you install it !

  • Gianni R@lemmy.ml
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    1 year ago

    First-class Linux support from Steam means they’ll get my support every time over Epic.

    • drathvedro@lemm.ee
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      1 year ago

      Even worse, Epic’s been dropping linux support from games they buy and then they prevent others from implementing it by not supporting it in their launcher and EAC