alt Hacker NewsI’ve wondered how much money was burned on Tim Sweeneys quixotic quest to re-create the Steam store. I know a lot of people who would religiously download the “free games” but never spent a cent.
Replies
In fairness, someone has to try. We can't rely on GabeN being (relatively) benign without serious competition.
I can't even play the decent free games I got because I can't find them in the UI. It doesn't have sort by rating (or any other popularity metric) so you have to wade through the junk. Imagine paying for that experience...
It's a noble quest. And realistic; it's almost beyond reason how bad EGS is/was for so long with so much money and "the best people" thrown at it for a decade+.
Anway, it's not quixotic IMHO.
> religiously download the “free games” but never spent a cent.
We are Legion.
> Tim Sweeneys quixotic quest to re-create the Steam store
Building a marketplace or AppStore isn't quixotic - it helps build distribution and gives Epic the power needed to drive studios to the Unreal Engine, though this strategy clearly went to the backburner due to Fortnite and it's entire ecosystem becoming the golden goose.
That said, Epic is also significantly more overstaffed than it's peers.
My main issue with Epic' Store is that it doesn't have a rating/review system just like Steam has.
Since game journos are completely woke and unreliable using Steam's game ratings from REAL players is a God-send.
Without it you simply wouldn't know if a game is any good or not.
The Epic Games store/browser is awful. I have bought one (insanely discounted) game on it and get all the free games, because i like to collect videogames. But i almost never play them, because the application is super slow. Steam has absolutely the best application, then (with a huge enormous gap) comes Gog, Amazon, Xbox, EA, Ubisoft and Epic at the rock bottom. I don't use Blizzards program, so i can't judge on that one.