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From: Spalls Hurgenson <spallshurgenson@gmail.com>
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.action
Subject: Re: Epic Game Store tops $1 Billion USD in 2024
Date: Sat, 22 Feb 2025 17:20:24 -0500
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On Sat, 22 Feb 2025 09:12:38 -0800, Justisaur <justisaur@gmail.com>
wrote:

>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.

Yeah, I purposely left GOG off the list of companies-that-
aren't-even-trying because of that. GOG also has a fairly unique
feature in its client that you can combine your libraries from
multiple sources (GOG, Steam, Epic, XBox, Origin and Ubisoft) it all
shows up as one giant list.

But you're definitely correct that their client is a bit janky and
short of features (and, as much as I love 'em, so is the company as a
whole). That said, I think GOG has largely backed away from the idea
of its client being anything other than a convenience for players; a
simple launcher to install and play games. They aren't really pushing
it the way they were a few years ago. Epic, Rockstar etc. still think
they have a chance of making their client a necessity.

That said, kudos to GOG for not only allowing players to make the
library the default view for the Galaxy client, but actually allowing
them to disable the store page entirely. That's something even Steam
doesn't do. Which only shows that GOG isn't expecting their client to
necessarily push sales the way EAApp or UPlay is hoped to do.

But regardless of my love for GOG, it's got a miniscule audience
compared to Steam, and its lack of features is probably part of that
reason (another bigger one is that, because of its commendable
anti-DRM stance, it doesn't get a lot of the hottest games until
months or years later). But I think the company has come to accept
this state of affairs, and has chosen to be a niche provider for
people interested in older games and to whom no DRM is important.
Which is fine. Not everybody has to chase after the brass ring.