this post was submitted on 01 Feb 2026
299 points (92.4% liked)

Technology

82296 readers
3863 users here now

This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.


Our Rules


  1. Follow the lemmy.world rules.
  2. Only tech related news or articles.
  3. Be excellent to each other!
  4. Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
  5. Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
  6. Politics threads may be removed.
  7. No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
  8. Only approved bots from the list below, this includes using AI responses and summaries. To ask if your bot can be added please contact a mod.
  9. Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed
  10. Accounts 7 days and younger will have their posts automatically removed.

Approved Bots


founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
top 50 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] Nioxic@lemmy.dbzer0.com 193 points 1 month ago (19 children)

Tim.. suing everyone else wont make epic store a great place to buy games

Look to GOG for inspiration…

[–] Tuscy@lemmy.world 97 points 1 month ago (5 children)

He’s just salty because the only games people “purchase” are the weekly free ones.

[–] ivanafterall@lemmy.world 48 points 1 month ago (4 children)

I don't even bother with those anymore. I never play the free ones I have, because I'd have to use Epic's software.

[–] Telorand@reddthat.com 19 points 1 month ago

Playnite is the better choice if you're on Windows, but either way, don't let Tim's dumb store stop you from ruining his day by generating a bunch of metrics that show you're only playing freebies!

load more comments (3 replies)
[–] fishos@lemmy.world 14 points 1 month ago (2 children)

Not even. I've bought games on Steam that I forgot I had in Epic because Epic is just that trash. Fuck Epic for trying to start their store by bribing developers for exclusivity on their platform. Bitch ass tactics to begin with and then crying and whining when their mob mentality strong arming didn't work. Best believe if their shit had worked and they became popular those greedy assholes would be asking a higher percentage once everyone was locked in.

load more comments (2 replies)
load more comments (3 replies)
load more comments (18 replies)
[–] luthis@lemmy.nz 144 points 1 month ago (46 children)

Has epic games developed anything like Proton? Valve isn't just a store.

[–] IntrusiveThoughts@fedia.io 33 points 1 month ago

What do you mean? Isn't Kratos dancing orange justice innovative enough?

load more comments (45 replies)
[–] Auster@thebrainbin.org 93 points 1 month ago (12 children)

I was almost forgetting Tim's whole deal seems to be antagonizing more successful companies than his.

load more comments (12 replies)
[–] tharien@lemmy.world 93 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (6 children)
load more comments (6 replies)
[–] WanderingThoughts@europe.pub 66 points 1 month ago (4 children)

is that Valve's policies and position as the leading distribution service in PC gaming means publishers are effectively blocked from selling games and add-ons at lower prices on competing stores

I still don't get this. As far as I can find, Steam doesn't allow steam keys to be sold cheaper elsewhere, but they don't bother with prices of games in other stores.

And doesn't Epic have a bunch of games exclusive to their store?

[–] orclev@lemmy.world 16 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

I still don't get this. As far as I can find, Steam doesn't allow steam keys to be sold cheaper elsewhere, but they don't bother with prices of games in other stores.

This is tricky. Officially Valve doesn't have any rules about non-Steam game prices on other stores. Unofficially evidence has been put forward by way of emails between developers and Valve that seem to show that Valve unofficially requires price parity with other stores and will punish games that offer lower prices elsewhere.

The charitable interpretation is that their policies are worded confusingly and some of their agents are misinterpreting the rule requiring Steam key prices to be uniform as applying to non-Steam keys. The uncharitable interpretation is that Valve knows such a policy would get them in hot water with anti-monopoly laws and so they're careful to make sure it stays an unofficial policy.

load more comments (3 replies)
[–] db2@lemmy.world 58 points 1 month ago (4 children)

Reminder: Epic CEO Tim Sweeney has defended child pornography, saying that stopping it is "gatekeeping".

load more comments (4 replies)
[–] Mrkawfee@feddit.uk 57 points 1 month ago (7 children)

Steam is the last company that has held out against enshittification.

[–] Crozekiel@lemmy.zip 24 points 1 month ago

It feels like all the other corpos are mad and want to sue Valve to force them into enshittification.

I'm all for holding companies accountable - when legal pressure forced Valve into creating a return policy, I was happy for that. But this is a $900 Million nothing burger imo. Publishers are mad they can't get the exposure and sales numbers on a cheaper platform. Cheaper platforms are mad that they still can't get people to switch to them by significantly under-cutting Steam. That's (publishers) customers mad they have to pay a 'premium' (basically the 'market rate' for the service before epic decided to start under-cutting btw) for a better service and the competition mad that a LOT of (publishers) customers are willing to pay that 'premium'.

load more comments (6 replies)
[–] Soup@lemmy.world 55 points 1 month ago (38 children)

“They charge developers too much!”

“Ok, Tim, so how exactly do you make money for your company, then? Because giving away all the free stuff seems like awfully bad business.”

Never thought I’d be defending a company charging a lot of money but since Steam actually does provide an excellent, stable service with bonuses like Linux development and the Steam Deck I mean, I really ain’t that mad, especially they still offer really good sales.

[–] Feathercrown@lemmy.world 40 points 1 month ago (4 children)

“They charge developers too much!”

So you should be able to undercut them, right? Right?

[–] MashedTech@lemmy.world 14 points 1 month ago

Apparently the epic games store isn't feeling so good, Mr. Stark .

load more comments (3 replies)
load more comments (37 replies)
[–] ordnance_qf_17_pounder@reddthat.com 42 points 1 month ago (1 children)

DRM free, launcher free games or fuck off.

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] circuitfarmer@lemmy.sdf.org 35 points 1 month ago

I'm really tired of seeing this idiot quoted.

[–] Brunbrun6766@lemmy.world 33 points 1 month ago (3 children)

No instead epic charges 12%, and if you use unreal engine but don't sell on egs they get a 5% royalty fee on all your sales. Sure those number are lower but egs isn't out here "empowering" devs

[–] lofuw@sh.itjust.works 43 points 1 month ago (6 children)

Epic would charge Steam's fees if they had Steam's marketshare.

Everyone thinking they care about creators or customers is a fucking moron.

load more comments (6 replies)
[–] woelkchen@lemmy.world 24 points 1 month ago (1 children)

if you use unreal engine but don’t sell on egs they get a 5% royalty fee on all your sales.

Sounds like abusing market power.

load more comments (1 replies)
load more comments (1 replies)
[–] Hazzard@lemmy.zip 33 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

Well... duh. The guy runs a competing storefront who's only claims to fame are:

  1. Spending a bunch of money for timed exclusivity and free giveaways, rather than building out core features.
  2. They give devs a better cut than Steam to claim moral high ground.

... that's it, that's all the reasons to use Epic, unless you want to play Fortnite or participate in an Early Access period where they chose Epic to reduce the overwhelming amount of feedback like Hades.

[–] xtools@programming.dev 26 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Tim Sweeney can gargle my ballsack

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] cerebralhawks@lemmy.dbzer0.com 25 points 1 month ago (5 children)

Shoddy article buries the lede: Epic isn't suing Valve. UK residents are. Epic is just rooting for them because Epic makes a product (Epic Game Store) that competes with a product by Valve (Steam). Epic is not behind the lawsuit. They are just cheering for their competitor to be taken down a peg.

Literally nothing whatsoever stops Epic from releasing their Epic Game Store app on Windows, macOS, Linux, and Android as these are open platforms that allow anybody to release an app (or app store) and offer it to their customers. However, Epic Game Store only actually exists on Windows, and it's on iOS in the EU. Everywhere else, they're keeping it from consumers out of pure spite in order to leverage the courts in their favour.

All of this started because Epic chose to defy Apple and the rules they agreed to in order to get Fortnite onto the iPhone's App Store, in that they could not use an alternative payment provider to sell "V-bucks," the in-game currency Fortnite uses. V-bucks cost Epic nothing to make as a virtual currency. Fortnite itself has expenses, but Fortnite is also a tech demo for the Unreal Engine. It exists, on a business level, to sell the capabilities of Epic's in-house physics engine, the Unreal Engine. A bit hypocritically, Epic takes a cut of games sold that use the Unreal Engine. It is not free. Fortnite players use the V-bucks to buy skins and other cosmetic experiences in the game. And Epic, tired of giving Apple a 30% cut of something that costs them nothing to produce, thereby giving each company 100% profit, added an option to pay Epic directly, either less money to get the same amount of V-bucks, or the same amount of money to get more V-bucks (I don't recall and it's not what matters). Apple suspended the Fortnite game until Epic fixed it. Epic refused to, so the app was de-listed, and the developer account was banned.

Epic then pulled out of the Mac ecosystem as well, which had absolutely nothing to do with any of this. Macs do have an App Store that looks like the one on iPhone, but just like the Windows Store in Windows, it's not required to install apps on a Mac. Most Mac users get their apps from the web, same as Windows users do. Like the Windows Store, the Mac App Store is just a convenience (both of them handle updates very well, for example). Not offering Fortnite and/or the Epic Game Store on the Mac has always been a choice Epic made, not any limitation imposed by Apple.

Epic is not just Fortnite, though. They made the Gears of War games for Xbox back in the day. Fortnite itself is actually a mashup of several games. The original Fortnite was a paid survival crafting game. I'm not sure it exists anymore, or if the freemium multiplayer Fortnite swallowed it up entirely. Like in Fortnite's main mode, you could build, but you could build freely (safely) during the day, and mobs would attack at night. Fortnite also contains elements of Unreal Tournament, Epic's prior multiplayer online shooter that last received a release in 2004; Rockband, the music game developed by Harmonix (which also created Guitar Hero), which is now called Fortnite Festival), and other acquisitions. Epic also made Unreal, a single-player game that Unreal Tournament was based on. They likely released a few other games I can't recall. But since Unreal and Unreal Tournament, they've also licensed the Unreal Engine to other developers, and it's been used in numerous games, including the original Deus Ex.

load more comments (5 replies)
[–] OscarRobin@lemmy.world 25 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Out of all the digital stores Steam arguably offers by far the most actual functionality and features for its cut. It’s still too high, but it’s possibly the least egregious example vs Apple, Google etc

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] goatinspace@feddit.org 22 points 1 month ago

Is that the Epic that agreed to six-year $800 million partnership with Google recently?

[–] IronpigsWizard@lemmy.world 18 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (1 children)
load more comments (1 replies)
[–] Quazatron@lemmy.world 17 points 1 month ago

Yep, time to wipe my Epic account.

[–] stupor_fly@lemmy.sdf.org 17 points 1 month ago (1 children)

they charge what they do because it works for everyone steam has more users and does more for them so it costs more to maintain everything which is fine for devs because people actually buy things on steam

the only time anyone ever talks about epic is to shit on them ,talk about the current free game there giving away and .... well thats it at least in my experience

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] gravitas_deficiency@sh.itjust.works 17 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (2 children)

The only reason I had an epic account was for their free giveaway. And now that I’ve switched to bazzite, and considering their poor Linux support, I’m inclined to just cut bait on them.

load more comments (2 replies)
[–] Fokeu@lemmy.zip 15 points 1 month ago

Suck me off, epic

load more comments
view more: next ›