stu54 t1_j911jcu wrote on February 18, 2023 at 12:25 PM

Reply to comment by myne in Ultra-enthusiast hardware is strangling PC gaming by redhatGizmo

Games sell hardware. A Nvidia partnership game is made to make the most common hardware obsolete, so new hardware can be sold.

The games industry has split into three, AAA games, free to play microtransaction games, and indie games. The industry wants to kill indie games because they don't generate any shareholder returns. They will obliterate Steam with frivolous lawsuits and givaways, and then the creativity that big corporations can't compete with will go away.

RecipeNo101 t1_j91xnyn wrote on February 18, 2023 at 4:46 PM

They're already struggling to move hardware. CPU and GPU sales have plummeted. Steam seems far too entrenched to be ousted when people are tired of multiple launchers and all the others are dogshit. I collect every free Epic game, I have hundreds, and I've never given them a cent.

kenriko t1_j9214pl wrote on February 18, 2023 at 5:10 PM

I remember when people bitched an moaned about Steam when HL2 was released. It was evil DRM back then. Ha!

RecipeNo101 t1_j923nfd wrote on February 18, 2023 at 5:27 PM

Yup, I remember being so annoyed with Counter-Strike 1.6 on Steam. Waiting to download HL2. The platform was a laggy mess. To their credit, they've come a long way since then, and it seems clear enough to me that other launchers don't have the desire or ability to match even a fraction of Steam's features.

stu54 t1_j91ze3s wrote on February 18, 2023 at 4:58 PM

Epic games freebies will win in the end. Distributing digital content isn't very expensive, and it undercuts Steam. New indie developers cannot compete with free games. Your time and hard drive space belongs to Epic.

charlsey2309 t1_j925q2a wrote on February 18, 2023 at 5:41 PM

Eh I have epic on my PC to collect the free games……..but I buy games on steam

amoralhedgehog t1_j926zam wrote on February 18, 2023 at 5:49 PM

I'm not at all confident in that prediction. Steam's current projections suggest Epic's impact on sales units stabilised last year, with sales expected to recover and surpass pre-Epic figures over the next 5 years. The platform has significant stickiness for millenial gamers, who now have dominating consumer power alongside decade-old Steam libraries.

Regarding indie games, the number of indie titles released roughly doubles every 5 years, meanwhile AAA titles have declined over the long term with the exception of a post-covid release backlog. As for "indie devs can't compete with free games"... at least 20% of the most popular indie games on Steam are freemiums...

Suffice to say, there are many features of the market that point toward the resilience of Steam against loss-leading AAA competitors.

gamaknightgaming t1_j95mqj8 wrote on February 19, 2023 at 12:48 PM

There are other things to consider. for example, i got cities skylines free on epic, but the bulk of the mods for it are on the steam workshop. Sure it’s possible to get steam mods to work on epic but it’s a pain in the ass and I’m probably just going to buy the game when it’s on sale on steam