Question what would make you leave using Steam for Epic Games full time? 100% rev for the dev

They would have to stop all the BS like paying studios off for exclusives and give us a proper competition for Steam.

interesting how people think on a "actual epic strategy"

I debated this with friend more than once.
and, maybe many won't like my idea, what's it's totally all right, butt I think differently. here is what I tell to my friends:

if you think, that all those free games are for you? you're totally wrong.
you're not the target for epic strategy of giving free games, kids are.
not the steam users with 5-7-9+ years accounts, not the 1k+ 5k 20k games collections, not you.

yeah, those kid that today play all day Fornite, the real gold mine of epic store, are going to grow, and in 20 years there is still possibly that they consume epic store, by another game, or others games like the ones they're giving for free, it's to keep them there, in epic.

it's a buniness after all.
of course, I'm not the owner of the true, it's just my way to think about this.

sorry for my basic english

Dont think theres anything. I hate Epic for how they acting. They have literally nothing to offer and trying cheapest moves to attract users (giving ppl freebies), also their exclusivity thing is absurd shiet. No idea why we need just another launcher.

at this point nothing will make me go to epic, i have so many games at steam it is hard to get all those again.
theoritically if i could transfer the games and epic had the same features as steam then maybe i could switch.
the other reason is if steam goes bankrupt, completely collapses and everyone loses their library.

ALSO FUCK EPIC AND THEIR EXCLUSIVE DEALS, I WANT KINGDOM HEARTS FOR STEAM

I hate exclusives.
I also "hate" Steam, because now I'm vendor locked, and I don't like the power Steam has that they can do many things to damage us as users, without we being able to fight back in any way. I specially dislike that I can be denied access to a game or my entire library for reasons beyond my responsability.

Since my gf started to gift me games in Steam (I should have given her my Gog account), I reluctantly started to use Steam. When my Steam library was double the size of my Gog library, I kinda left Gog behind and started to use Steam more. There was a point when I just realized I was caught by Steam.

Despite all the advantages Steam has, Steam has horrible customer support, devs can do things like making empty depots for their games (effectively robbing you your right to play the game), the launcher over launcher problem, and well, you know, stuff that adds up to making not such a pleasant experience. Behind the apparently solid model, after enough time you see it's all facade, there are too many booby traps behind.

I might end finding a good enough reason to stop getting Steam games (recently I was on the edge of having one), but I'll keep using Steam due to my good and big library, which is a memory of my gf, and a commitment to all the people who have gifted me games, directly, or indirectly like here in SG. The games I bought personally aren't that important.

About Epic? They can do as much as me about Steam. In the hypothetical case that somehow Epic takes Steam's place... They would be equally bad. The only (not the main, the only) purpose of a private company is to earn money. Not to please customers. They'll sell you some idealistic vision but in the end they'll balance doing something that benefits users or doing something that gives them 5% more revenue, and they'll choose the revenue. For the users, only when they think they'll also increase revenue, because if it's too expensive, it will be "in the future".

Yes I have a sour vision about private profiting companies, and a sour experience as a customer of big companies. The bigger, the worse.

I suppose being able to transfer 100% of my library from Steam to epic and better sales as steam has.

But honestly, I don't think it's going to happen. So now my epic library is full of free games I hardly touch because my steam backlog is so big.

If Epic would achieve world peace and cure cancer I might be tempted to reward them.

I use both, but Epic’s launcher is a resource hog. It is unbearably slow to load the library, and downloads take longer on Epic than they do on Steam. I’ll buy a game wherever it is cheapest, but if equal price, Steam winds every time simply for the ease of using the launcher.

Not sure how Epic's doing now but I remember making an account there when it first became a thing and It sucked really bad.

No public profile, could not find where to add friends, no screenshots to post somewhere where all of said friends could see it, and no achievements. Was there a community board? I don't remember checking to see if there were spots where people can talk about the same game. I think some of these were fixed by now, but I'm not willing to use them again unless they let me copy my games from steam to epic's library. Free games don't entice me, I'm too used to Steam although I approve of the competition.

Also I'm a little salty because of their exclusives, but my backlog keeps me entertained and busy

Never, because they don't have cool websites like Steamgifts. ;]

Nothing really, i'm in too deep with Steam, for me to even consider moving would require the ability for me to move my entire Steam library to Epic, and for Epic to reach feature parity with Steam. And that first point will never happen.

I don't care having games in different launchers, ever since someone advertised playnite here, I just use that. Steam, GOG, Epic, EA, Uplay, battle.net, itch.io, and all my emulators in one spot. <3 Even before then I would compare sales on Epic and Steam and decide where to get instead. :]

Only thing I wish Epic had was gifting.

Technically speaking I do use Epic as I keep hoarding their freebies and sometimes I even play them, but for me to leave Steam at this point it would mean that Valve has done something downright catastrophic. I have spent a decade and a considerable amount of money building up my Steam library, there's more than 4k games in there (most I haven't even played yet), even if I wanted to leave they have me firmly held by the balls.
But lets humor the thought, what would it take for me to switch to Epic as it is right now or might be in the future (no point in fantasizing about things they simply won't ever do like going DRM-free). Well, they would need to match all the quality of life features Steam has accumulated over the years, offer prices competitive with what Steam has during sales, have an abundance of oficial key stores and bundles as Steam keys have, drop the whole opt-in for reviews so publishers/devs can't shield themselves from backlash, and have a library of games as vast as Steam... so maybe a couple of decades from now they'll be in that position, but by that time Steam and GOG will probably be way ahead.

Like many said I'm too deep in my Steam library now. Unless they somehow replicate my library for free and manage to get better than Steam in all ways I can't imagine ever making the jump.

EGS is for me "death from a thousand cuts"
example:
Problem: 500+ games need to be sorted in logical way (I`m have Asperger's syndrome)
Steam: OK tag when newer you want (even use emoji🎁)
EGS: "ONLY 12 list or our servers will explode!"

Nothing because other than the free games Epic offers nothing to consumers that's better than Steam. Dev revenue has nothing to do with consumers. Sure Epic has been great for devs. How that does benefit gamers? It doesn't. Devs rarely pass on that extra revenue in the form of lower prices to consumers. Epic still doesn't understand their exclusives are anti-consumer that pisses off gamers. Everything they do is inferior to Steam in every way. Well, except their customer service. I think I had an expired game code and they helped me within the hour and gave me a new one. So yea Steam's customer service is still the worst.

Things won't change until consumers officially own their digital games and can move/replicate them to another client. Many of us have hundreds or thousands of games that we're not going to give up. We're being held hostage by DRM. So I think it'll take legal intervention to change things which probably means it's not going to happen anytime soon. At least not for non-Europeans. I heard EU already has a law for digital ownership for consumers? Idk. But yea Epic doesn't seem to know how to properly compete with other businesses, which is, do everything better than the competition. And don't piss off consumers. That should be an obvious rule.

I have a Steam account for years before having an Epic one, and accumulate a lot of games on Steam.
Also, I could get games cheaper from Steam, so I wouldn't change to Epic.

I do use Epic to play some games that I don't have on Steam (FTL, Into the Breach).

If Steam goes bankrupt, I will move to GOG or Itch.
Epic is secondary option, as I prefer DRM-free, and GOG Galaxy client isn't mandatory.
Having a store client running every time you start your game isn't likeable.

There is likely nothing that will make me switch off Steam besides Steam legit shutting down or doing something catastrophic. Even so, I'd rather go to GOG than Epic Games.

11000 games on steam and never played the freebies on epic? Nothing.

Mostly i play games with friends so if my friends would move exclusively to another platform with no crossplay id have to move. Other than that basically no way to overthrow steam for me.

1. Bundle sites making good bundles with epic keys.
2. epicgifts.com

I love that for Devs but personally, as a consumer, it just isn't viable to switch over to Epic. I've amassed a huge library and invested so much time and money into Steam (achievements, games, profiles, etc.) that I could never switch over and not be at a loss (even if they somehow managed to give me every Steam game I own in Epic). Plus I hate having a bunch of launchers taking up space or having to switch over. I tolerated Origin forever for the Sims, Dragon Age, and Mass Effect but thankfully now I have nearly all of my favorites on Steam. I really don't want to start that with Epic. I've gotten all the free games but I never even bothered to download them since I have yet to run out of Steam games to play, lol.

You also have to consider that even if Devs get 100% of the profits, they may still not come ahead as Epic exclusives since it limits their market and they could have sold more game units on Steam or other platforms that it would still be more profitable even if/when the platform took a cut of those profits. Devs should make the best financial decisions for themselves so they can keep making the games we love. But even when 100% profits for 6 months as an exclusive is tempting, it won't matter if the game doesn't sell well on the platform. When a game first releases is a sensitive time for devs as that's when they finally start making money off of the product they developed and spent so much time and money doing so. If you limit the market you're selling to, it can be financially devastating, especially when the market is not necessarily the majority of available consumers. So even though 100% profit sounds good, it won't always pay off, especially for smaller devs or niche games that don't have a large, motivated following.

now Epic are killing off Trading in Rocket League they don't earn from it - https://www.forbes.com/sites/paultassi/2023/10/11/epic-is-killing-rocket-league-trading-for-a-terrible-reason/

Unreal is also getting a price increase (to some) - https://www.theverge.com/2023/10/5/23905082/epic-unreal-engine-pricing-change-film-automotive

Epic owned (or maybe used to be owned?) bandcamp in serious trouble - https://www.wired.com/story/epic-games-sale-bandcamp-music-platform-limbo/

not going to hate on Epic but maybe there is a reason that Valve/Steam has a cut of 30%

I SEE YOU TIM SWEENEY. So thats your nick on steamgifts huh? hm...

Joking aside Ive tried to start favoring epic store but stopped for now. Bought some games there, operencia, hades, ashen, phoenix point too.
Better developer cut the nicest thing to drawn me - i feel like gaming(non-mobile) is threatened, from mobile to the big players (big publishers and devs) chasing profits to saturation and so on- and 30% cut, a number that comes from retail stores makes no sense for digital stores under current costs (servers and bandwith got extremely cheaper).

But my reasoning wasnt favoring epic specifically. I did the same with GOG... and the same thing happened- i didnt kept at it and resorted back to steam. What i really want is true competition. I LOVE Valve, have my criticism and im no fan boy but compared to most companies i hold then and the platform to high esteem but im completely against monopolies...

And lets be frank, Valve became lazy. Actual changes in steam started to come more frequently the moment Epic started making the rounds and thats no coincidence. I want GOG, Epic and Gamepass to thrive not for steam to fail but for all 4 to become better from it, and hopefully maybe drm free and better cuts become the norm someday

For most gamers stucking with steam it just boils down to sunken cost fallacy- ie hundreds of games already in one store, the convenience of everything in one place. Steam have more features across the board but deep down thats the no 1 reason. Multiple launchers are a bore. I blame drm, the launcher-tied nonsense that Steam started and sadly xbox and epic continues. We should be able to BUY from any store and launch however wed like.

I only stopped buying on epic because i havent seen the improvements come fast enough. The launcher is mostly the same. The overlay isnt to my taste, it still feels more like a chore compared to steam many things.
And steam now have NOTES in the overlay and oh god i use that A LOT, its the one thing ive been missing in games- no more alt-tabing like i did and now i use then way more then before.

But im still torn. Steam pricing for my region got worse not better. I feel like everyone is lagging behind- gog launcher still isnt as good as a universal launcher like Playnite can, everyones overlay lags behind steams, and each launcher/store have their issues and my nitpicks with it.

Anyway im broke currently so i havent been buying games anywhere, the odd bundle and things like steamgifts are steam only so one more reason to keep making Gabe newels retirement cozier i guess. Hopefully given a few more years with actual improvements to the other 3 will help make things better.

I wish GOG tried the Epic tactic. Number of games owned is a huge factor for usage. I wonder how gog would be if it had started like Epic given how many years its been around.

I'd need Epic to replace my current game collection on Steam.

At the current rate of free games, they should be mostly there in a decade...

I thin it is dumb that different platforms can sell the same game, but you cant play it on whatever platform you want. Like buying music, but only being able to play it on apple products.