• CileTheSane@lemmy.ca
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    11 months ago

    The end result is the same for the consumer.

    It really isn’t.

    In one case a publisher is choosing to publish where the customers are. If consumers don’t like that service they are free to publish somewhere else

    In the other case a company is trying to force consumers to use their service, instead of providing a better service that they would want to use.

    • Lmaydev@programming.dev
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      11 months ago

      Either way you install a client and play a game. Already have a few so it doesn’t really matter.

    • Rose@lemmy.world
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      11 months ago

      Steam was literally forced on those who owned a physical copy of Half-Life and wanted to play it. The dominant position has nothing to do with the service offered by Steam. It was dominant when it barely had any features. GOG competing with it on features and in fact offering the bonus of DRM-free games hasn’t improved its market share of about 0.5%.

      • CileTheSane@lemmy.ca
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        11 months ago

        No one is upset about having to use EGS for Fortnite. Their own games that they develop themselves they can do what they want with.

        The issue is when Epic approaches other developers, especially those that have already announced a Steam release, and try to get exclusivity out of them: https://medium.com/@unfoldgames/why-i-turned-down-exclusivity-deal-from-the-epic-store-developer-of-darq-7ee834ed0ac7

        Epic: We would love to have you on our service
        Dev: I’m not interested in exclusivity
        Epic: then we have no interest in having you on our service

        Having more options for their customers makes their service better, but Epic isn’t interested in being a better service.

        • Rose@lemmy.world
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          11 months ago

          Dev: I’m not interested in exclusivity

          Epic: then we have no interest in having you on our service

          If anything, the example you brought up proves the opposite. Darq is on Epic and its developer even took money from Epic to make it free, so there is no grudge even past the dev’s publicity stunt.

          • CileTheSane@lemmy.ca
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            11 months ago

            Their attempt to strong arm an exclusivity deal failed and at some point they relented and put the game on their store.

            If they had just hosted in on their service at the same time in launched on Steam it would have been better for their customers and more profitable for Epic. But they are more concerned about trying to force exclusives than do what is better for their customers, even if it loses them money.