I can’t seem to find that one comment explaining the issue with them…
But for the sake of promoting conversation on Lemmy, what’s the issue with Epic, and why should I go for Steam or GoG?
Note: Piracy is not an answer. I understand why, and do agree to a certain extent… But sometimes, the happiness gained by playing something from a legitimate source is far greater 🥹… coming from someone who could never ever afford to purchase games, nor could my parents… Hence I’ve always played bootleg, or pirated games.
TL;DR
What’s wrong?
- Their launcher has a terrible UI AND UX.
- They make exclusive deals with studios to prevent other platforms from getting games. (Someone mentioned that Steam did the same thing in their infancy. Also, I have another question; why is it ok for Sony and Microsoft to make exclusive games for their consoles but not ok for these PC platforms to do so?)
- They have been invested in by a Chinese company, Tencent. (Someone mentioned that it isn’t that big of a deal, but idk.)
- They are actively anti-linux for some reason.
Pure speculation: of the people who don’t like Epic, maybe 25% are legitimate, principled objections to their business practices. The rest are split evenly between people who just want to manage their entire library on a single platform, and folks just going along for the hate-ride because it seems like the “safe” position to take.
From a technical stance, Steam and GOG are superior platforms (for different reasons). For equal-price purchases, I can’t think of a single reason to choose Epic over other options. But claiming a game for free? That doesn’t make anyone a bad person.
Hmm…
I’ll be honest, I definitely prefer having everything on one platform for convenience. This is in second place; right after letting me play a game directly from the icon without having to open the damn launcher in the first place.
Also, I am not well educated about the technicalities of Steam or GoG, so all I can say is I’m enjoying the cool factor of GoG combining my accounts in one place. Kinda bummed that Epic’s integration doesn’t have game time and achievement sync… But that’s probably an Epic thing.
Also also, fuck yeah! If it’s free, I’m in 😂.
Playnite can do game time from Epic and Steam, plus its own accounting for any .exe you can launch through it.