Free [FREE] Borderlands The Handsome Collection - Epic Store

I didn’t say it’d be unsafe, lol.

Exclusive titles are the only problem I have with them. It might not bother you, personally, and if not then feel free to grab the game. But for those of us with thousands of dollars invested in Steam game libraries, those of us who like to keep games in one place instead of have a dozen different launchers and platforms installed, or even just those of us who care about monopolies and anti-consumer business practices, and the freedom of choice, it’s pretty annoying that they’re making back room deals to keep tons of new titles exclusively on their store.

 

Steam, like all platforms other than GoG’s, is a form of DRM that manages your games the way almost all other services do. Is DRM a good business practice, either? No. Not at all. And I’ll gladly join you on the picket lines for that argument. But to say it makes Steam worse than or the same as Epic is... just wrong. Completely out of left field, really.

And you’re right. A large part of the blame for this most recent bout of anti-consumerism falls squarely on the shoulders of the developers and publishers who agreed to these deals with Epic. A note here - not all developers were happy when their publishers made that decision without consulting them, whereas others were part of it.

... Thought it may sound like it, I’m not the biggest fan of Steam. There are things I don’t like about the platform. Things I wish it did better. I dislike Epic quite a bit because of these exclusivity deals, but it’s not like I’d hate to see more legitimate competition with Steam. Just not like this.

GoG had the right idea. They offer all their games DRM free. Use their launcher if
you want, or don’t. Download the games and play them where and when you like. They’re yours, you bought them, and far be it from them to “manage your digital rights”. ... Hell, they even tried to offer Steam library integration once, where buying the games on one of the two would mean you had them on both. Didn’t work out, but hey, they tried. ... They’re really not quite on Steam’s level, mainly due to new release restrictions and fewer features, but they’re at least more pro-consumer.

It’s true, Steam does have a fair monopoly. And Epic couldn’t compete with that any other way, I guess. Hell - they certainly can’t compete with their platform. Last I checked, they had essentially none of Steam’s features. No user reviews for games, no achievements, no community market or workshop, no cloud saving, etc, etc. They may or may not have improved on that since, but when they started making these deals they had nothing to compare themselves to Steam with. This was really the only way they were going to get people onto their platform. Still, that doesn’t mean this has been at all fair to consumers.


Damn. Double post. Ah, well. I’ll merge them in a bit.