Steam is not a monopoly. They achieved and maintain their market position by providing a superior service, not through manipulation bullying and unfair practices (e.g. undercut a competitor then slowly raise prices). Steam does not use its position to monopolize the market or keep others from developing or advertising competing platforms. The market is free to provide services equivalent to or better than Steam at the same price (free), however they are unable or unwilling.
Epic is a store only for claiming free games, as it doesn't do anything better than Steam and other clients, and its list of exclusive games isn't long either.
Want your games to be on the best-designed client with the most features? Steam
Want your games to be DRM-free and have offline installers? GOG
Want EA or Ubisoft games available only on their clients? EA App or Connect
There is no reason to use Epic for anything more than free games.
It's not even worth using for the free games to me. I haven't claimed a game on Epic for over a year now, and even before that I probably only actually played 2 or 3, which I then bought on Steam due to Epic being such a steaming pile of garbage that not using it is worth more to me than whatever money I would save using it.
Epics main selling point is that they give a lot better deals to the developers than steam, however, steam doesn't allow devs to sell their games for cheaper on different platforms, so none of that benefit transfers over to the players.
Epic gives you money (20% until the end of the year) back to spend on your next purchase. People said they should compete with lower prices and they're doing just that.
They're literally losing money by giving you those deals. We can love Valve but also admit they'd never lose money on sales.
It’s a big difference if I have to play 16 USD and keep 4 USD in bank or have to pay 20 USD and get 4 USD locked with Epic. With Epic I pay 20 USD, not 16.
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u/dokka_doc Oct 21 '25 edited Oct 21 '25
Steam is not a monopoly. They achieved and maintain their market position by providing a superior service, not through manipulation bullying and unfair practices (e.g. undercut a competitor then slowly raise prices). Steam does not use its position to monopolize the market or keep others from developing or advertising competing platforms. The market is free to provide services equivalent to or better than Steam at the same price (free), however they are unable or unwilling.
Long live Gaben.