Why Everyone LOVES Valve and HATES Epic

Valve supposedly has a monopoly but we have to talk about how we got here and what the future may hold.

Edited by @HiTechLoLife

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S - T I E R A C C E S S O R I E S
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M O R E A C C E S S O R I E S
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S U P P O R T F A N T H E D E C K
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[viewtifuljoe]

I think the fact that Valve isn't a publicly traded company is the biggest factor in why they focus so much on player experience and improvements.

[Kevin-slgk]

I personally don't see Valve as a monopoly, but as a Market leader. It's not Valves fault their "competition" sucks at running a platform lol.

[CrashD]

Monopoly is bad...
Epic's solution: a worse service, rooted in greed
Valve's response: "We are fine with competition"
Me: Guess which one gives me the better service?

[justinwhite]

Epic lost me completely when they tried to sue Steam for uncompetotive practices because leaderboards, steam workshop and achoevements werent available on other platforms - yet made no attempt at all to create their own systems for developers to tap into.

This tells me they are not genuinely interested on competong or 'free market' at all.

[Tang-qizw]

Here's something to remember: Steam's main competition isn't the Epic Game's store or unity launcher; it's piracy. The whole system was designed as a way to combat software piracy by making the official means of buying a game easier and better. They succeeded. Piracy still exists, but was greatly reduced by steam being so much better.

[maymayman]

"The easiest way to stop piracy is not by putting antipiracy technology to work. It’s by giving those people a service that’s better than what they’re receiving from the pirates" is the quote that I always seem to remember most from GabeN because it shows the way he sees things. He knows what consumers want and he knows that by giving it to them, he will maintain a consumer base

[giovanna]

*Your account got hacked*

Valve: "follow these useful guide and we will help you to recover your account"

Epic Games: "All I can do is ban your account and the alt your are using right now"

[Woopor]

Valve got their market lead and huge amount of money, not by using slave labor, not by lobbying the government, not by selling basic needs for absurd prices, not by artificially inflating the price and rarity of their product, not by assassinating competitors, but by being the first and best at giving a service and not shooting themselves in the foot and fumbling that success early.

[Pikminiman]

The key distinction is that Valve has never engaged in anti-competitive practices. Being better and friendlier than the competition is not unfair of Steam.

[thedukeofdoom]

I do think that when gabe steps down or passes valve definitely could turn easily into something terrifying

[kanon]

I worked with steam as a customer service in the Philippines int the mid 2010s and their offices were so nice. Free food and you get 1 hour besides your lunch break to hit the gym and it was paid.

[bass-dc]

My experiences with Epic and Steam on a hacked account over the years:

> My Epic account used currency I had to buy stuff in fortenite, I got my account back after a few weeks and removed the bought assets ... but did not refund the money so it poofed into the eather.
> My Steam account got hacked and something similar happened. I contacted the support, they asked if I had any physical games linked to the account and I provided a picture of me with the product key of a game I bought (X3 TC). The support answered within an hour and reverted any purchases made after the last time the password changed.

That is why I stick with Steam and have never pirated any game that is avaible on steam.

[nukfigrs]

When my Index's cable started wearing down after 2 years of use (the setup cost me like 1500 bucks) not only was valve support incredibly helpful in temporarily alleviating the issue, they also sent a 150 Euro replacement cable free of charge without my set being on warranty anymore, customer service like that is why valve is a market leader

[AdityaSingh-rpmt]

Another incredible steam feature is the steam workshop which allows easy access and sharability to mods and assets which provide boost to the gameplay

[qfurgie]

Something not mentioned is that Steam also provides servers for the games they host, so that 30% goes there too

[squeezydonutz]

Remember when Epic said that publishers could pass the savings on to customers? Wonder when we'll see that happen?? All we ended up with, is $60 - $70 Epic exclusives.

[uncy]

Epic: "We aren't a monopoly, we want to take down monopolies to eliminate monopolies"
Also epic: >forces games to only be available on their launcher, thus creating a monopoly
actions speak louder than words

[bcmelendrez]

When Apple and Epic games were legally clashing, at some point Valve was asked to hand over users steam personal data (i forget if it was apple or epic) but Valve refused to hand that over. That right there makes valve more trust worthy than any company.

[RichardServello]

Free exclusivity on epic is like being allowed to exclusively sell sushi in a gas station restroom.

[ArtieTheRunner]

Here's my personal reason why I'll never use Epic Games Store again, at least as a Russian player: due to certain unnamed events, Epic Games completely took away my library of what little games I PURCHASED on their platform, probably thinking that people of my place of origin don't deserve to play games right now. Meanwhile Steam simply doesn't allow to transfer my funds to the Steam Wallet while I still get to keep and play everything I've ever purchased. It's not simply a monopoly on Steam's part, it's just better long-term business practices.