- cross-posted to:
- games@sh.itjust.works
- pcgaming@lemmy.ca
- cross-posted to:
- games@sh.itjust.works
- pcgaming@lemmy.ca
From the opinion piece:
Last year, I pointed out how many big publishers came crawlin’ back to Steam after trying their own things: EA, Activision, Microsoft. This year, for the first time ever, two Blizzard games released on Steam: Overwatch and Diablo 4.
The thing is, Steam wasn’t even the best launcher when it came out. Stardock already had a launcher that was way better and more reliable, had more features, and was completely optional (you didn’t even have to install the launcher if you didn’t want to!).
Every launcher, when it first comes out, is shit compared to the other launchers. It was true 20 years ago when Steam came out too. It’s not just about how much time has elapsed in the world of technology. If it was, Steam would’ve been better than Stardock Central when it came out, but it wasn’t.
It’s about time spent building the product and infrastructure. That’s why everyone, including Steam, has started off by just forcing people to use the launcher even though it sucks. If Valve had given people the option to not use the launcher back when Half-Life 2 came out, almost nobody would’ve used Steam, and it likely never would’ve gained critical mass. Almost nobody was using Steam voluntarily.
Steam and EGS and every other launcher just rely on the idea of forcing people to use the launcher, even though it sucks, and hoping that they can get their act together before the whole shithouse goes up in flames.
It’s also why I think it’s so weird that people are upset with EGS forcing them to use a shittier launcher. There was a time when Valve was the one forcing people to use the shittier launcher, but, years later, people absolutely love Valve.
… Because years later, steam got good.
Epic started out shit, and then used their fortnite money to impro… No, wait, sorry, they used their fortnite money to buy exclusivity of games people had already preordered from other stores.
Starting out shit and then slowly improving is one thing. Starting out shit and then kicking your customers in the teeth is completely different.
EGS has been improving, though. And Steam was bad for a really long time. The idea that it was steadily improving all along the way is even debatable. There was like an 8 year period where offline mode didn’t work. It took them something like 10 years before they added the option to get a refund for a game. For a long time, they would routinely ban entire accounts for issues with PayPal, even if the account holder hadn’t done anything wrong. Steam had substantial security issues for years, until security researchers finally wrote an open letter begging Valve to improve their security practices. There was at least one issue that was reported and they refused to fix it until it was actively exploited. I’m pretty sure that’s actually happened more than once.
EGS started with a ton of stuff working that it took Valve years to do, including better security practices, refunds, etc. And they’ve been improving, probably at a rate faster than Steam did in the early days.
I understand that the exclusivity thing pisses everyone off, but that’s not even an EGS-specific issue. I wanted to play Borderlands 2 without having a Steam account, but that game was exclusive to Steam for 7 years. If I can wait 7 years to play BL2 outside of Steam, you guys can wait 6 months to play BL3 outside of EGS or a year to play Metro outside of EGS.
And games unexpectedly requiring a launcher is also a pre-EGS issue. In the early Steam days, you’d pre-order a physical game expecting it to run from the disc, and, surprise, the publisher would send you a disc with just the Steam installer because they never bothered to mention at pre-release time that the game was gonna require a launcher.
The real problem is launchers in general. They should either not exist, and games should work without them, or they should all implement a standard API so that you can play the game using any launcher you select.
No, not exclusivity. Pointedly spending large amounts of money to take already purchased games away from people.
Exclusivity isnt a new concept. Im still patiently waiting for the next horizon game to come to PC at all. Exclucivity isnt kicking your customers in the teeth.
Wagging your fortnite cash in peoples faces by showing them you can take away what they already paid for is the kick in the teeth.
And, more importantly, it showed me how they value me. They will spend extra money to directly inconvenience me in the hopes Im stupid enough to pay them for inconveniencing me. Bad launcher? Thats fine, blizzards launcher is dogshit and I played overwatch for years. Exclusivity again, fine. Ill wait if Im really going to be stubborn, and I wont if I really want the game.
But going out of their way to antagonize other users of the competition, as if Im supposed to find that cute and rebuy what I already purchased at a store I already chose? Zero respect for your customers means you will do the same or worse to me even if I am stupid enough to pay you, if you think antagonizing me again will wiggle out more of my money.
Fuck them forever, they cannot rebuild that trust. The only reason they havent done it again is because steam changed their tos. And they will do it to you as soon as they think theyve got a stable userbase
Valve also spent money to force customers to move games they’d already bought over to a different launcher, though. AFAIK EGS has never made anyone rebuy anything, but forcing existing titles to new launchers is standard practice in the world of launchers. Users were happy playing Half-Life and the original CS outside of Steam. Then Valve decided to spend a shitload of money building Steam, and, one release, they announced that anyone who wanted to keep playing Half-Life or CS would need to start using Steam. Users were furious because Steam was fucking awful at the time. It got even worse when Half-Life 2 came out because Valve’s services were constantly down. Computer Gaming World or one of the other gaming rags at the time ran a story about it talking like 2 days to install Half-Life 2. And they were installing from disc. It had to connect to Steam to download patches / decryption keys. The original Borderlands also forced users over to Steam.
I know you guys love Steam and hate EGS, but, honestly guys, they’re starting out almost the exact same way. Steam was shit. EGS is shit. Steam infuriated people by forcibly moving existing games over to Steam. EGS infuriated people by forcibly moving existing games over to EGS. Steam infuriated people by not having all the features that the old platform did and generally being shitty. EGS is doing the same. Steam forced people to use it by having exclusives. EGS forced people to use it by having exclusives.
People did not trust Valve for pretty much the same reasons they don’t trust EGS now. I boycotted Valve for something like 15 years because I lost an account that had several of my games when their password reset feature didn’t work for a months long period (and support never responded).
I understand Valve had redeemed themselves in a lot of people’s eyes, but if it’s okay for Valve to be completely inept, force people to move to a new launcher, and not be trustworthy in the early days, isn’t it okay for Epic too? Alternatively, maybe it wasn’t okay for Steam to be so shitty early on. Would we be better off today if gamers had more backbone and boycotted Steam so hard that it failed? Valve even forced people to rebuy games in the early games! They used to completely ban accounts (i.e., you couldn’t even login) when there was a payment processing issue, and there was a longstanding bug where they’d ban people for using PayPal. Forums used to warm people to never use PayPal. And if anyone did get banned when they used PayPal, everyone would just blame them for using PayPal. “Everyone knows not to use PayPal on Steam!” But why the hell was Valve accepting PayPal and then banning people for using it?!
To put it another way, being a shitty company early on benefited customers in the long run one time (at least, according to many). Could it a second time?
You really are not listening. You are going off on old grudges that have literally nothing to do with what I am saying to you.
I get it. Steam kicked your childhood dog. That has nothing to do with epic buying a game out of peoples mouths.
I guess I’m struggling to understand why you’re specifically mad at Epic for this behavior. Why not be mad at Steam? Because it was longer ago?
Show me when steam forced people who had paid for a game from a completely different retailer to rebuy the game on steam, while completely deactivating the copy that was already purchased.
They did that with Half-Life. I already explained that.