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They've made their argument for why developers should publish there. Now, why should I want to use the Epic Games Store as a launcher? Don't get me wrong. Th

They've made their argument for why developers should publish there. Now, why should I want to use the Epic Games Store as a launcher? Don't get me wrong. There's plenty of room for Steam to improve. I want launchers to compete for its users, but all they ever seem to compete for is publishers. For all of Steam's problems, people love it because it offers a huge feature set out of the box. - Achievements - Friends lists - Voice and text chat - Family sharing - Streaming - Multi-drive support - A decent refund policy - User reviews - An easy-to-use mod workshop - Cloud saves - User-generated tags - Independent curators The list goes on... So-called "competitors" never bring even half that feature set to their new platforms. Instead, they force users to switch by making games exclusive to their platform. A lot of people have talked about publishers having incentives to distribute games on multiple platforms, but history has shown us that they simply don't. I don't know what the solution is. I guess I just wanted to vent.

ryandrake 8y ago
> - Achievements - Friends lists - Voice and text chat - Family sharing - Streaming - Multi-drive support - A decent refund policy - User reviews - An easy-to-use mod workshop - Cloud saves - User-generated tags - Independent curators Do people really care about this stuff? I've started holding my nose and grudgingly using Steam, and really all I want is a way to buy a game and get it on my hard drive. I don't need a middle-man to launch it for me or clutter my system up with achievements and friends and yet-another-chat-app. Every time I run a game, Steam even shows that little pop-up--as if I needed a reminder that it's constantly sitting there in memory, eagerly waiting for me to hit SHIFT-TAB and "engage" with it. Can't I just play the damn game I bought without the distributor trying to insert itself into the experience at every opportunity?
- tomc1985 8y ago
  So the shift-tab thing feature was copied from a chat program called Xfire, which back in the days of AIM and such was a neat way to be able to talk to your online friends while in a full-screen game. Steam copied that feature and added a web browser, and the rest of those interactions some time after. I agree that it feels like marketing BS but it is cool to be able to chat with out-of-game Steam friends in-game.
  - Insanity 8y ago
    I remember that for quite a long time, Xfire also did it way better than steam did. Xfire worked quite well accross all games - they had a nice variety of skins you could install (compared to Steam's 3 skins including the default one, IIRC). It saved your screenshots and videos in 'the cloud', had some neat 'join server' feature that worked in almost every game and it mostly worked without any issues. You could also use their server browser so you didn't have to even launch a game beforehand, you could just browse for your servers in their program and then jump right into the game. Seeing Xfire mentioned brought some nostalgia to me, thank you :D (Also, Xfire changed to a tournament system and eventually died. Which is a shame but steam does probably everything and more than Xfire does nowadays. Except custom skins?)
- wDCzI78WRQaC1e3 8y ago
  > Do people really care about this stuff? The short answer is yes. I don't care that much about achievements, but things I've used and value in Steam certainly include a friends list, a decent refund policy, user reviews, an easy way to install mods and cloud saves.
- namlem 8y ago
  I use those features all the time. A lot of people do.

ryandrake 8y ago

> - Achievements - Friends lists - Voice and text chat - Family sharing - Streaming - Multi-drive support - A decent refund policy - User reviews - An easy-to-use mod workshop - Cloud saves - User-generated tags - Independent curators Do people really care about this stuff? I've started holding my nose and grudgingly using Steam, and really all I want is a way to buy a game and get it on my hard drive. I don't need a middle-man to launch it for me or clutter my system up with achievements and friends and yet-another-chat-app. Every time I run a game, Steam even shows that little pop-up--as if I needed a reminder that it's constantly sitting there in memory, eagerly waiting for me to hit SHIFT-TAB and "engage" with it. Can't I just play the damn game I bought without the distributor trying to insert itself into the experience at every opportunity?

tomc1985 8y ago
So the shift-tab thing feature was copied from a chat program called Xfire, which back in the days of AIM and such was a neat way to be able to talk to your online friends while in a full-screen game. Steam copied that feature and added a web browser, and the rest of those interactions some time after. I agree that it feels like marketing BS but it is cool to be able to chat with out-of-game Steam friends in-game.
- Insanity 8y ago
  I remember that for quite a long time, Xfire also did it way better than steam did. Xfire worked quite well accross all games - they had a nice variety of skins you could install (compared to Steam's 3 skins including the default one, IIRC). It saved your screenshots and videos in 'the cloud', had some neat 'join server' feature that worked in almost every game and it mostly worked without any issues. You could also use their server browser so you didn't have to even launch a game beforehand, you could just browse for your servers in their program and then jump right into the game. Seeing Xfire mentioned brought some nostalgia to me, thank you :D (Also, Xfire changed to a tournament system and eventually died. Which is a shame but steam does probably everything and more than Xfire does nowadays. Except custom skins?)
wDCzI78WRQaC1e3 8y ago
> Do people really care about this stuff? The short answer is yes. I don't care that much about achievements, but things I've used and value in Steam certainly include a friends list, a decent refund policy, user reviews, an easy way to install mods and cloud saves.
namlem 8y ago
I use those features all the time. A lot of people do.