Linux surpasses the Mac among Steam gamers

How does it feel to rent your games from Valve?

Pretty good, considering they fund my piracy avenue (DXVK/WINE) either way.

It's not a rental.

I quit Steam, some years ago.

I found their customer support appalling.

I lost everything, including the games I used to have on CD but which had migrated to Steam.

To quote Akbar : "it's a trap!"

Not to be pedantic, but I think you meant Admiral Ackbar (extra c), not Akbar.

I prefer it to renting from Nintendo, Sony, Microsoft, Epic and Ubisoft.

And prefer not having to haul a library of physical media with me everywhere at the minuscule risk of losing access to said games.

To be pedantic I think you meant "To be pedantic...".

weird you are fine with Steam, but Epic has the exact same format and it's a problem.

Why not just leave your account inactive?

Got'em

The Epic launcher is an unmitigated disaster that has barely improved in library management capabilities since it launched. I'm not sure if they fixed it but last I used it you literally could not see the download size of the game you're downloading and the controls for changing the queues are non-existent. The launcher is also the biggest resource hog of them all beating Origin and UPlay which is an achievement in itself. I am not wading through how troublesome it is to use what should be a fairly well featured launcher after 4 years of launch to support a "competitor". Discoverability on the store is also awful when Steam has been working on this space for over a decade to try and highlight indies. The reviews system is also incredibly inferior.

If I have to use some third party launcher to make up for what it lacks, I might as well use steam

The Epic launcher is actually a UE4 app. This explains its resource usage.

It is sad that you have to keep the launcher running while playing. I would rather used the storefront apps to update the games only.

And launch the exe directly from Windows desktop or start menu.

There are a few games that allow this, for example Cyberpunk 2077 and Control.

I sometimes refund games if they are obnoxious with letting me launch them from the start menu.

Epic is a bublic company. Valve is a private company.

In Steam's terms, they make clear that they will do everything they can to maintain your access to your games, even if they close shop. Of course, that may not be much, but I think Valve cares more about the customer than any other company listed above.

> Of course, that may not be much, but I think Valve cares more about the customer than any other company listed above.

I've seen enough of the dark side of Valve to not trust that notion any more than any of Epic's promise. They haven't won that goodwill of "trust me" from me.

Besides, private companies scare me a tiny bit more in the grand scheme of things. A large company is evil, but boring. It's really hard for any new CEO to radically change the direction of a company in the short term. But Gabe won't live forever, and who knows who/what takes over later. taking action against a private company as a consumer is much harder than a public company that at least needs to care a bit about shareholders when making unpopular moves.

My steam account is now over 10 years old. CDs start degrading at 20 years.

Fine, as long as some of the profits from my rent go towards development of the Linux gaming ecosystem. It may not be the best way through, but it's the most hopeful path forward at the moment.

I choose YouTube music over Spotify and Apple Music, as well.

It's almost like, sometimes the company itself has some amount of influence on your choice.

> If I have to use some third party launcher to make up for what it lacks, I might as well use steam

Devil's advocate: Epic allows you to use third party FOSS clients, Valve never did.

Steam is more of a safety deposit box than a rental. I would be paying money every month to rent, which I don't.

A good point. Mine is 13 years old, and I've never once had a UX issue with the company where I felt that I didn't own the game. I know that the Terms of Service makes that possible, but in practice, the company's track record makes me delighted to do business with them.

They also took years to add a shopping cart.

I love it personally! I appreciate Proton, cloud saves, the ease of install, and sometimes even the Friends feature, with some games supporting just right clicking my friend and clicking Join game.

Seems pretty cut and dry to me - you don't own the game.

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