You can't tell me that if epic somehow wins this war that they won't immediately enshittify the platform. Valve has my trust.

GOG doesn't need a launcher, because the games don't have DRM. It is just nice to have, in order to keep games up to date. Steam, Epic, Origin and the Microsoft thing needs a launcher, because DRM. The non-optional part is what is annoying, it is not a choice, if you buy something there, you have to use their launcher software, that needs to run in the background all the time (Sure it doesn't need to run *all the time*, but just having to start it in addition to the game, is annoying). With Steam being the first one to require a launcher, it was annoying at first, but became useful and people started considering it the standard game delivery solution. Now we need another one for Epic and all other stores that peddle DRMified games. If Epic would be just another store, where you buy and download games, nobody would complain, but Epic created (reinvented) an additional incompatible game delivery solution that required their launcher, that is what people are mostly annoyed about. If the industry would come together and create a vendor neutral and compatible software and game delivery mechanism, where people are free to choose where to buy their software and games, and with which launcher they want to keep it up to date, that would be awesome, but sadly capitalism favors short sighted and wasteful competition instead of cooperation. IMO the

Correct, nobody can predict the future with accuracy.

Valve is private and already takes a 30% cut. It's not possible for valve OR epic to enshit according to the definition of the word.

Are they? Interesting word definitions here.

> Valve is private and already takes a 30% cut. Yes. That is rather high, but AFAIK the same on Xbox, PlayStation and GOG. Itch.io is on 10%. > It's not possible for valve OR epic to enshit according to the definition of the word. What do you mean by that? Enshittyfication is when companies try to offer a good platform first to reach many content producers and consumers and then, once the consumers and producers depend on the platform, it goes bad for them in order to favor profits of the company owners or stakeholders. Just because a company is private, it can still change to favor short term money extractions from all their customers.

Care to elaborate further on specific events or even just link some articles for a lazy bones like me? (I only get free games from epic and then never play them)

Wait, I'm confused. The article is about how Epic *won't* take a cut to a point. Surely, you're not giving money to Epic if you buy the game on EGS?

Completely unrelated, but is your username a reference to the movie Can't Hardly Wait?

At least Valve takes some of the money that they make from Steam and use it for Steam. You cant run an entire gaming platform based on developers alone, you also need to make it at least somewhat bearable for consumers.

100% of $0 is still $0. I'll spend my money on platforms that have proven to respect their customers.

epic can have a seat at the table when they actually start competing with valve in terms of features and customer service.

even if they do become pro-consumer you shouldn't spend there. because it'd be a temporary affair and soon as they win market share from steam it'll disappear.

in this case you can.

No just a play on the name amanda

but no, steam has maintained its 30% cut *since its inception* do you know the rate publishers like EA demand? 50%. EA is just pissed valve is a better and more reasonable publisher than they are. so long as EA and other publishers exist and are taking a bigger cut than valve. I'm happy to give valve a pass atm at the better option.

You are mistaking publishing for distribution. Publishing is not distribution.

*smile* the whole point of publishers back in the day before the internet *was* distribution and marketing. no I am not mistaking one for the other.

No, you absolutely are. Publishers will typically pay for retail manufacturing costs (so printing, boxing and shipping), but that's not the same as digital distribution. Digital distribution doesn't map to shipping game boxes, it maps to retail. Which is why games on Steam have deals with publishers, NOT with Valve.

> so they can keep feeding a monopoly that licenses drm keys to them. I guess I don't understand Epic's model. How is Epic different from Steam in this regard?