• SYLOH@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      I’m fine with a company making their own games exclusive to their own software platform.
      I don’t like it, but I accept it.

      I absolutely hate a company inducing other companies to release only on their software platform. Seems like monopolistic practices rather than competing on services.

      • Chailles@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        It wasn’t even to release on their software platform, it was more explicitly a “non-Steam” release as games were available on PC via both Epic and Microsoft’s Store.

      • Ottomateeverything@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        Seems like monopolistic practices rather than competing on services.

        It literally is? They’re literally not competing on services, they’re competing via artificial scarcity.

      • rwhitisissle@lemmy.ml
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        1 year ago

        I absolutely hate a company inducing other companies to release only on their software platform.

        On one level I get this, but on another level…the companies themselves agreed to it. Like, everybody gets pissed at Epic for making the offer. Nobody gets pissed at the company that takes it. So weird. It’s almost like your favorite game developer only exists to make money and they got offered more money than what they thought they’d make releasing on Steam.

          • rwhitisissle@lemmy.ml
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            1 year ago

            Let’s also not conflate “developers” with “companies”

            Development companies, like 4A Games are what people are complaining about when they complain about “Developers.” This is different from the programmers or individual game developers who work on the game as people. The words might be conflated, but the company is what’s being complained about.

            Also, it depends on the game. Metro Exodus was subject to what their publisher wanted to do. The developers behind Phoenix Point, however, received additional funding from Epic to finish their game in exchange for a year of exclusivity. It just depends. Regardless, it kinda just…doesn’t matter, right? I mean, it’s video games. There are people in the United States who can’t afford insulin. A video game being exclusively published for a year via the EGS is, like…the least of our societal problems. And I meant that literally.

                  • rwhitisissle@lemmy.ml
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                    1 year ago

                    That’s not really what we were talking about, though. And, to get back on topic, Valve doesn’t engage in profit sharing with its workers. You can like a company as much as you want. It’s still a company and at its foundation it extracts surplus value from its workers. It exists purely to make money. Like any other company. Any positive sentiment towards it that is not purely an evaluation of the quality of its products and services is misguided and largely a product of public relations, rather than any genuine merit of the entity itself.

    • Cossty@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      I don’t like epic like any other guy but point your finger at right people. Gearbox made borderlands 3 exclusive to epic.