Steam vs. Epic Games Store: Which PC Gaming Client Is Better For You?

Steam has long reigned as the go-to store for PC games, but now the Epic Games Store is giving Valve Software a challenge. Which is the best option for you?

[TheGreatOwlMaster]

Personally, I buy the games I want on Steam and and take the free ones from Epic, then adding them as a non Steam game on the Steam Launcher so that all my games are in one place. Simple as that

[kmccurdy]

It’s simple. Have both and buy the games you want on whatever one you want.

[blueridgeocean]

Steam is so much better. No internet? No problem. Play your games in No special mode. Epic games probably hired the same crew from rockstar to develop their launcher just saying

[BryanBrockAndrews]

I think it wasn't quite fair that you mentioned Unreal Engine without at least mentioning Source.

[armored-clown]

90% of the games i buy on Steam to keep things mostly in one place. But the Christmas 2023 sales Epic Games had a much better game sale with much cheaper prices tbh because of the 33% off coupon that stacks with the sale prices.

[BeingADik_Jacob]

Steam has a much better launcher and most indie Devs tend to put their products on there, but Epic Games giving free games every week is so nice.

[altostratus]

Steam does give full games away to keep forever ... a couple that I took advantage of that I can remember were Black Desert Online & Company of Heroes 2. Not as frequently as Epic but, to say that Steam only makes games available to play for free for limited time periods as opposed to giving them away for free to keep would be incorrect.

With respect to the Steam Discovery queue, you can also modify filter keywords to include or exclude titles that have those keywords associated with them. If you want to exclude all RPG's for instance, update your filters to remove that keyword for games so they don't show up in your Discovery Queue. I find this very useful for narrowing down what I''m interested in seeing in my Discovery queue.

You mentioned Steamdeck but, didn't elaborate. Steamdeck is basically Valve's, developed from the ground up, handheld PC that gives you full access to your Steam library of games to play on the Steamdeck. You can connect peripherals (mouse, keyboard etc) via the USB connection and connect a monitor via the PC Display Port and play games that way. Bluetooth and WiFi connectivity (no Ethernet port on the Steamdeck itself). There is also a Dock that provides more USB connections, an Ethernet connection and Display port and HDMI connectivity.

Not sure if Epic has something similar but, Steam also allows you to share your game library with your family members and guests. You can authorize up to 10 devices and 5 accounts to play games from you library.

I had an Epic account at one point but, the "decent" games that they gave away, in my opinion, were few and far between. Epic is good for the game developers because they get to keep more of the money from the sales of their games which the purchasers of their games never see as a discounted price. Can't blame them really. They sign exclusive one year deals with Epic and as soon as they are no longer restricted in the distribution of their products they run right back to Steam to make them available their to a much larger player base.

In my mind, Steam has a lot more to offer the gaming community than Epic will anytime soon.

Hope this was useful :)

[TanticHero]

Steam is the best since it has online features for games like HUDs for TF2, workshop items for Gmod, and you can buy almost every game on it. I only use epic for Fortnite lol

[OnlinePez]

Steam is good for the gamer, Epic is good for the developer

[Lidoe]

The workshop is the main reason i buy everything off of steam, there’s so much more you can do with your game than with epic

[sitrueis]

Decisions decisions, do I want to send another email to our lord and saviour Gaben or forget the fact that Epic murdered my beloved Unreal Tournament!

[Egobyte]

Steam took my cherry with online distribution, but the advantages of Epic Games are getting harder to ignore. While Steam does have a larger library of gamees, not only are the prices usually much cheaper for the same game/DLC on Epic due to Steam taking a larger cut from the developers (like the video said, Epic Games take 12%, which is a ratio that can be lowered even further if the developer uses Epic Games' own Unreal Engine, whereas Steam takes up to 30%), but the fact that Epic gives away free games.. sometimes AAA titles .... for for... FREE... is just a game changer (pun not intended, but appreciated) for someone who can't spend a fortune on games. I still use Steam because of all the games I have bought since forever and their modding community is admittedly superb, but Epic has quickly become a serious contender.

[Daniellb]

Steam, of course.
Reviews, good trophies, way more fun, screenshots, you can edit your profile. Better UI. Better performance.

[JeremiahGayle-kktj]

Hey, dude on the part when u blurred the name before organizations it said it was on the top left, just to let u know.

[joacofranz]

Everytime when i play a game on epic games:session expired for some reason, never happened on steam

[Proxycon]

"Steam doesn't offer free games, only free trials" is incorrect. Not only does Steam offer games that are free forever, developers of games can decide if they want to make their game free for a certain period of time. Everyone who "buys" the game during that timed exclusivity period will get and KEEP the game for free. Example: Titan Quest Anniversary Edition was recently free on Steam. I have a copy of it in my library and I can play the game without ever having to pay for it. If you look into the store now, as of July 4th, 2022 (Summer Sale period) the game costs $5.

[lSeKToRl]

Uhh where is PC game pass in this convo?

[tek_soup]

epic sucks for re installing your games, you had saved on a different drive. all the tutorials and epic games answers dont work.

[AKU-hsrj]

as a laptop user: which one is easier on the system?

[cromax]

As someone who has used both quite alot, steam is obviously the better choice. Even if you remove all the extra features that steam has, epic game LITERALLY DON'T EVEN WORK. It signs you out automatically after a certain time period, and sometimes the epic games website wouldn't even load. I was barred out of my own account for a couple of days since the password reset link would always 404s