I can’t seem to find that one comment explaining the issue with them…

But for the sake of promoting conversation on Lemmy, what’s the issue with Epic, and why should I go for Steam or GoG?

Note: Piracy is not an answer. I understand why, and do agree to a certain extent… But sometimes, the happiness gained by playing something from a legitimate source is far greater 🥹… coming from someone who could never ever afford to purchase games, nor could my parents… Hence I’ve always played bootleg, or pirated games.

  • ono@lemmy.caEnglish
    0·
    11 months ago

    Epic cons:

    Also:

    • Epic has already been caught scanning and collecting data from files on people’s hard drives that are totally unrelated to Epic or its games.
    • Epic’s habit of interfering with game availability by buying exclusivity deals.

    Ties with Tencent (super anti-consumer chinese state-owned megacorp)

    To be more clear about it, Tencent is Epic’s largest investor, so they obviously have a great deal of influence over and access to anything they want from Epic (likely including user data).

    Steam pros:

    Also:

    • Actively funding and supporting development of linux gaming technologies for more than a few years now, to the point where linux is now very much a viable gaming platform.

    Steam cons:
    Drm

    Given that DRM on Steam is entirely up to each game publisher, I don’t think it’s appropriate to list under “Steam cons”. I’m not even sure that any of my Steam games have DRM.

    If you mean that most Steam games expect to find an instance of Steam running, you should know that is not DRM, and it’s trivially replaced with the open-source Goldberg Emulator or a similar tool.

    Gog
    I don’t know anything besides the fact that it has drm-free games

    Another plus for GOG is that they let you download games with a web browser. No special app required.

    • Kecessa@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
      0·
      11 months ago

      Epic was scanning your Steam friends and play history

      Valve was scanning your DNS cache

      So… Maybe we shouldn’t forget to mention the second one if we’re going to bring up the first one

      • ono@lemmy.caEnglish
        0·
        11 months ago

        Valve was scanning your DNS cache

        The story I read was that they didn’t collect or report anything, but just flagged a user if a game hack site was found in the cache, and that they stopped doing it years ago.

        Not comparable to what Epic was caught doing, IMHO. Still, if there’s an article with more detail, I wouldn’t mind reading it. (Maybe it was part of their anti-cheat system of the time?)

        • Kecessa@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
          0·
          11 months ago

          Funny how if it was any other company you would call bs and tell them to fuck off with their “trust me bro” attitude.

          To me it’s much worse what Valve did, they have no business looking at my browsing history, that’s much more private than the games I own on Steam or the three friends I’ve got on both platforms anyway.