Re: Epic Game Store tops $1 Billion USD in 2024

On 2/21/2025 9:08 AM, Spalls Hurgenson wrote:

 There's a related article talking about how Amazon expected it could
dominate the PC gaming market-space and yet repeatedly failed to
dislodge Steam/Valve.* Like Epic, they thought that just throwing huge
amounts of money around would be sufficient, and were surprised that
tactic didn't work. Apparently the idea of actually creating a product
that could compete on features never occurred to them.
 To any other would-be competitors to Steam, here's a (probably
incomplete) list of features you need to have in your storefront:
      a) a way to launch games (duh)
     b) a way to buy games (also duh)
     c) preferably a way to make the launching bit the default,
        and not the storefront
     d) chat
     e) user reviews
     f) discussions
     g) workshops for mods
     h) screenshots & saved videos
     g) sharing libraries amongst family
     h) remote play
     i) toggleable FPS counter
     j) cloud saves

GOG's further along than most, it's still a little janky but it has 'DRM free' and can be launched from it's own directory, and can install without the client on any family's computers.  They do have user reviews.  They also make an effort to make games work all of which makes them superior to Steam in those respects.
Epic & Amazon all they've got is free games and being inferior to everything else.
Sony and MS's are fairly good, but they have to be as they service PS & Xbox respectively.
--
-Justisaur
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