Gregory's Server@firecat @EU_Commission
- Epic Games Store would be the closest game distribution platform that could build parity with Steam, but it is (in my opinion) the most lacking store of all.
It advocates game distribution percentages to fall to levels that are possibly unsustainable for most platforms to take, including EGS itself. The platform has brought the anti-competitive measures of third-party exclusives to a platform that has rarely had any. It directly exacerbates the issue of having to sign up to multiple game distribution accounts to access games. The UX and feature selection is routinely lacking, as the rate of development on the store is glacial in comparison to the market standard (perhaps exacerbated by the very slim margins it takes). Many features that one would expect with modern games are missing entirely, and require gamers to use steam to fill in the gaps anyway. Their customer support is some of the most atrocious I've ever seen. Etc etc etc...
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 @LiquidParasyte @EU_Commission yes something other than exclusive steam. The only way people can buy games is steam, some publishers like betesta only sell games on steam. Valve has control over the requirements to play the game. You shouldn’t need the Steam client, you shouldn’t need Steam account for free games, you shouldn’t need to be tied to their User Agreement. Publishers are to be blamed but so it’s Valve for not doing more better choices for people. @LiquidParasyte @EU_Commission epic exists but again no one likes it and will demand steam over anything else. The stores even smaller ones like itch.io are losing customers, they are being rejected by Valve, they are being used as testing the waters and never published a full game in those stores. Epic games doesn’t have new DLC or fixes, it just exists to get free market until the developers switch to steam. |
@firecat @EU_Commission
The deficiencies of the competition, paired with the advantages of Valve, serves to compound their market share, requiring less overt anti-competitive actions by them in comparison to someone like Apple.
To address these issues, I would like to see the EU put forward a sort of intercompatibility measure like they did with the DMA wrt messengers:
- allow game distribution platform users to cross buy games across platforms and use on any platform of their choosing.
* I fear that this will only incentivise even stronger DRM measures than we have now.
- allow game distribution platform users to cross play with other users on other platforms
* I also fear that this would just prompt the game industry to solidify usage of Epic Online Services, which in their current form are another layer of DRM, less performant than other multiplayer stacks, and funnel data and usage towards Epic, sometimes even requiring an Epic Games account on non EGS stores. I despise that.
@firecat @EU_Commission
The deficiencies of the competition, paired with the advantages of Valve, serves to compound their market share, requiring less overt anti-competitive actions by them in comparison to someone like Apple.
To address these issues, I would like to see the EU put forward a sort of intercompatibility measure like they did with the DMA wrt messengers: