this post was submitted on 23 Aug 2023
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The reason players prefer Steam is because the other products are not good. If a launcher wants to compete with Steam, they need to do things that Steam does better than Steam or do things that Steam cannot do yet. Right now, I log into Steam and I am immediately in my library without any ads or recommendations, ready to launch because Steam lets me pick where I load in. When I log into Epic, I am stuck in the store page with a full app rotating banner of a bunch of games I am not interested in. Plus the library is limited in scope and I have to slowly navigate through all the games to find the game I want to play. Same with Blizzard, Ubi, all of them.
I don't know if you intended it this way, but saying that Steam users are hostile of other launchers makes us sound like we are unreasonable in what we are asking for. If Epic was better than Steam, I would use it. It's not.
I'm saying that even if a launcher is good, people will refuse to use that launcher. Pc gamers have extreme brand loyalty to steam.
A launcher has to add value, and not just launch shit. Most of these launchers do not add any value at all, they're just another unnecessary layer between you and playing a game.
I agree that the epic launcher sucks, but Steamworks has also refused crossplay forever (both cross platform between PC and consoles, and cross launcher on PC, which is why a lot of the not ancient games on gog didn't have multiplayer), meanwhile EOS gets you cross platform and cross launcher crossplay support. Pretty much anyone who wasn't a huge AAA dev used steamworks for multiplayer until epic launched eos.
Cross platform multiplayer isn't held back by Steamworks. It's held back, mostly, by Sony and Nintendo. You notice that PlayStation and Nintendo are the only platforms that regularly do not allow cross platform play. Even in games that do have cross platform play, Playstation usually only allows it with other consoles and not PC. Because Sony is fucking stupid.
I don't even know wtf you mean by "cross launcher." Every source of the game on a PC has always been able to connect with other players who got the game on different stores. IE Steam players can play with EGS players and Origin players just the same. If you just mean launching the game from one launcher rather than another... Steam lets you do this! You can add literally any fucking program to Steam and have the benefit of the overlay and even controller support when the game doesn't have it native. Can't say that about any of the rest of them.
Incorrect. Games that use steamworks for multiplayer can only play with other steam users. This has been an issue for people buying games on gog for over a decade. Big AAA devs use their own multiplayer backends, but most AA and indie use steamworks (or eos these days).
Not one Steamworks game is incompatible with an EGS/Origin/GOGGalaxy game or vice versa. You are pulling this shit straight out of your ass.
Steamworks doesn't support crossplatform or crosslauncher multiplayer, period. Every game that has cross-launcher play between steam and eg. gamepass, gog, epic, etc. has it because they either didn't use steamworks for multiplayer, or they replaced steamworks multiplayer for either EOS, GoG Galaxy, or their own custom multiplayer backend. This is not up for debate, this is something anyone even somewhat familiar with steamworks or gog would already know.
Homeworld Remastered only recently got cross-launcher multiplayer when they replaced steamworks with their shift backend. Same for Homeworld Deserts of Kharak.
Deep Rock Galactic doesn't support cross-launcher play or crossplay between the gamepass (xbox or pc) and steam versions because the steam version uses steamworks multiplayer. DRG support crossplay between the MS store and xbox console versions.
Brutal Legend straight up doesn't have multiplayer on GoG because it relied on steamworks and they didn't bother implementing anything for gog, so they just removed it.
Dying light 1 only got cross launcher play in 2022 when they replaced steamworks with EOS. Previously multiplayer didn't work between GoG and Steam versions.
Off the top of my head, No Man's Sky, Stellaris, Grim Dawn, and Darktide all had to write their own multiplayer backends to replace steamworks to get cross launcher play.
Literally every multiplayer game that was steam exclusive and then releases on epic removes steamworks and replaces it with EOS because steamworks doesn't support cross-launcher play (eg. Rising Storm 2, Mordhau)
edit: GOG docs that specifically point out that steamworks doesn't support crossplay.
In the future you should do literally any research to avoid making an ass of yourself.