I don't have any disdain for Steam as a platform, but due to Epic's weekly freebies, that itch.io bundle a couple months ago, ps plus, and a year of game pass, I haven't bought a game on steam in probably a year

My problem with Epic is the launcher, when a game updates (specifically remnant from ashes so far) you have to install the whole damn thing again. And, when you first download, instead of downloading first and then asking to install it installs every few minutes and slows the download to a crawl.

Even if the game is free it might end up costing me by forcing me over the comcast data cap at 50$.

These days its not my #1 choice like it used to be. I absolutely hate the design and actively dislike the store pages. But it won't stop me from buying a game there.

I never used Steams features fully, so I'm not tied down to that software platform even though i have 700+ games in that one basket .

I Launch everything out of GOG Galaxy since the Beta started. That way I don't have to look at other clients.

Kinda surprised I hadn't posted in this thread 9 years ago. While I use/used Steam a lot at the time I was pretty staunchly anti-DRM even back then and even more so today. Would go with GOG, Itch and other DRM free stores all the time if I had the option (but GOG has a habit of randomly rejecting the games I'm interested in, and what at a point seemed like it could be a viable competitor to GOG, Zoom Platform, just seem to have no interest in actually competing, they just have a storefront they haven't updated in years).

I noticed Remnant pulling multi-gig downloads a couple of days in a row, but this is a problem with Remnant, not with the Epic launcher. These patches, as far as I can tell, were for the DLC content being added, not general game patches. There have been a handful of games which have been compiled in such a way that required the entire game to be redownloaded and those games have lived on Steam. It's a per-game issue, and almost* every other Epic games patch quickly in the background without an issue.

*I'm adding this as a caveat because surely someone is going to jump down my throat with like one other example if I don't specify it

I don't really have any issues with Steam on the consumer side, sales are still really good, i rarely have technical issues, downloads are fast and reliable, the forums are my primary source for game support and for talking with developers and communities, reviews are useful, guides are great, workshop support is fun and easy to use, i now have 5,312 screenshots hosted on my profile, based purely on features all the competitors are extremely shallow by comparison.
I like GOG as a feel good service for old games though i do wonder how sustainable it is, i know they sell new games too but that's not the draw for me, i'll use Origin for first party exclusives but those are on Steam now too so i don't need to, and i stay away from Epic because their business practices are really off putting.
I like that Epic give developers more money... when that money isn't being syphoned by publishers, but it all feels like money they've lured children into spending on Fortnite, in that respect Valve taking a bigger cut somehow feels more honest (for whatever that's worth in business), they did take a very small step into paying them more and i wish they'd go further with that, but i can't argue with anything on the consumer side it's great.

No, but neither do I feel especially loyal to Steam for the crap storefront they've kept up and continue to keep up. Crap mostly fueled by their seeming allergy to spending one cent more than is required for bare minimum, workable stores.

I try to keep my ego from attaching to ANY one place where our main interaction is "I give you money, you give me entertainment" because they cannot ever care about me as much as I can potentially care about them. And I already follow enough Youtubers to see how dangerous parasocial relationships can become.

This is even more hilarious than when it was first made.

Well it's the first and only game I've downloaded on there so far so I can't tell. I did read that the steam version does not have this issue. Still, the slow downloads because the game is simultaneously installing sucks too, is that not a common issue either? When I researched (really quickly honestly) it seemed like a common issue with the launcher.

Its not that i hate other storefronts, but when you own over 500 games on steam it really makes it your hub for pc gaming. I'v never had a problem with steam personally, yes it dose go down from time to time but its rock solid for the most part.

The scary part about steam and any digital storefront though is what will happen to our games if for some reason they ever went under. Its obviously unthinkable right now at least with Valve but lots can happen over the long term and they dont owe us anything if the store goes offline. Thing is though digital is the only way forward at least on PC. The last retail game i personally bought was the Reaper of Souls collectors edition and that didn't even come with a disk, just a code for Battle.net

Im not a fan of storefront exclusives though, i get why its happening with epic giving developers a bigger piece of the pie, but from what i have seen and heard usually developers still make more off their games when they come to steam anyways just because more people see it and buy it on steam. I would use epic more if they had more of a feature set on there, they lack a lot of basic featuers that make steam great like achievements, the workshop and the fourms. I know some of this is coming but i think i have been using steam so long its hard to change to something else.

Hell, even EA is back selling there stuff on steam, which tells me Origin hasn't panned out for them the way they hoped.

@sanity: steam has an offline mode so that shouldn't be an issue.

@oursin_360: I meant if they ever closed down, if you cant download your games its sorta useless. Unlikely like i said, but it could happen.

@sanity: ah, that's true. I would assume they'd give you the option to redownload everything before they shut down, but you never know.

I'm probably a companies favourite type of consumer because I can't really get behind the 'what if this digital store goes away?' line of thinking. If Steam disappeared tomorrow the odds of me going back to 90% of the games in my library is very low, I've got my value out of them so suddenly not being able to play them would really not make much difference to me. Plus with frequent sales on multiple platforms and remasters being a regular occurrence I've already bought many of the games I really do care about several times over despite having perfectly fine ways to play them already so I'll probably do it again in the future.

I understand those who do have anxiety about the possibility, it's money you have spent so you want to have something to show for it but in the long run I find the convenience of digital worth that price versus having to store games and know I really 'own' them (where my house could always burn down and I lose all that stuff anyway)

whoa I remember this thread

I love Epic. I log in, grab the 1 or 2 new free games, and close Epic. Steam sucks because I've got a bunch of friends on there that I don't want to talk to and I can't get a new account cause all my games are locked into this one.

@development: Not really steams fault, why not just remove them from your friends list?

I look for other options first like buying direct from the creator (Cogmind) or through GOG (Rimworld).

If it's only available on Steam, then I sometimes bite the bullet and buy the game but quickly remember why I dislike Steam; Can't play offline. For those that are about to say, "Yes you can!," no you can't. You have to update the game first or update Steam or go online and then go offline for offline to work. None of those options is offline gaming.

Also, I don't have a friends list, there's something about hats or cards that I don't care about, and all the updates. No thanks.

test test test test, Really? GOG rejects games? anyway as far as GOG is concerned one of the great things they've done is making all these old games run on modern PCs.

also, there was a potential competitor for GOG? 😲 wow, I didn't know that too.

I checked out the Zoom platform thingamajig site, and wow, oh boy.

They only have 451 games that are DRM free? They are definitely dwarfed by GOG. Do they even have customers?

Steam is my preferred store, and I plan on getting a Steam Deck within a year.

@facelessvixen: hehe, for those that can afford a steam deck, it's all the rage nowadays.

also, from what I can gather from the steamdeck subreddit, the wait list is long 😅

It's funny how eleven years ago was already seven years too late to express your hatred for Steam. Should have done that when people were having issues activating Half-Life 2 or fighting Steam to get Counter Strike working.

@justin258: Steam hate maybe quite possible exceeded Windows hate at the time of Half-Life 2 releasing. I remember getting the boxed version which came on like 7 discs or something and then having to install Steam which was a broken piece of shit at the time and go through Online Authentication to play MY single player game?! The friends list didn't even work, and in fact wouldn't work for at least another year. Man Steam was such a piece of shit when it launched. But hey, give them a decade and it's mostly an OK game launcher / store!

This was a weird question in 2011. Shit was pretty much figured out by then. I had the Steam beta, I remember how terrible it was.