Seems like buying games to remove them from your competitor is a scummier thing to do.
If Epic spent half as much money as they are suing organisations and instead funded developing their shop into a gaming community platform like Steam, they’d probably have caught up by now.
its not about making better product for epic. its about removing competition so they dont have to.
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If they didn’t have fortnite and unreal engine money propping them up it would have closed by now. Hasn’t been profitable since it opened in 2018.
If they didn’t have Fortnite they probably wouldn’t even have the money to dump into Unreal Engine to make it where it is today. They probably would ask Tencent for more money and Tencent would have bought the rest of the company. The game engine business is just not as profitable as Fortnite, just look at Unity.
There’s an argument for using these services in the early stages because they often operate at a loss in the hope that they will secure a monopoly in the future. The trick is to immediately abandon them when they jack the price up. I recently heard that in the food delivery space virtually no one is turning a profit.
Even worse, it’s costing the food places you order from money. We have a lot of restaurants here that will give you free stuff if you do not use Thuisbezorgd which is owned by Just Eat Takeaway. They also own the American Grubhub since 2021 and are also active in the UK, Germany, Canada and the Netherlands.
-edit-
Correction they no longer own Grubhub, and are active in a lot more countries than I first thought, see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Just_Eat_Takeaway.com
As of late 2025, Just Eat now belongs to Prosus.
They could remove that competition by making a better product, but that is somehow always the last thing they’d ever think about. It never stops being so fucking weird with all these business people who go to great lengths to do shitty stuff and always end up making it worse for everyone except a quick buck for themselves, even though they could easily make a lot more for a longer time by simply doing a good job. But no, that would require anything other than immediate greed. Absolutely vile people.
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we are products and cattle for them, not customers. Their customers are other rich people they associate with and exchange favors and assets with.
I wonder if this is how it would be to live in world dominated by vampires.
Sweeney is legit delulu tbh.
He literally said Epic’s launcher/store is ready as is, doesn’t need more development. It also runs in Unreal Engine, so you get Chromium (CEF) + Unreal Engine running just for one launcher/store.
At least on Linux you can run Unreal Editor without EGS (because it doesn’t exist on Linux) and if you’ve claimed any free games on Epic, you can use Heroic launcher to manage them easily.
if you’ve claimed any free games on Epic, you can use Heroic launcher to manage them easily.
Oooh. This is interesting. I wonder how much of the epic library is Linux compatible.
it’s often more risky and expensive to hire, train and develop systems and communities like that, especially when doing it against the tide, than to just try to trip up the competition. It’s not just that it’s dificult and it costs money, but it’s not preferred because investors abhor risks.
Isn’t this seen in global politics all the time. When US says China is too dominant in X and we need to fight it. They are not saying that US will invest in shit that will help them compete. All or 90% of the actions is to try to trip up, sabotage and sanction the competition.
Just a bunch of crabs in a bucket.
I wish they’d just focus on fixing Unreal. It’s a shit show.
To be honest, Epic is doing a good job of tearing down walled gardens in places like mobile, and we’ll probably be better off for it. But yeah, they’ve done a terrible job of competing with Steam.
The problem there comes from Epic taking secret deals to settle those cases instead of let any precedent be set that would actually benefit customers.
They’re doing that because they want their own walled garden.
“Gaming community.”
Steam and Epic are both malware.
Epic is trash, simple as
Rocket League had a native Linux version, but they also pulled that.
And a Mac client.
Because Valve has more money that someone winning a lawsuit can take from.
Because it’s a patent troll who has attempted this a few times before.
I’m still bitter at Steam for taking a bunch of my single-player games off me that I’d already paid for when I moved to another country, and refusing to refund me because I’d already played 10 hours. Also the support guy treated me like I was a criminal for even trying.
Who sued who in the what now?
TIL it was removed from steam. I play it on my deck all the time
Marketshare, and you have to remember the difference between platform and store. If Epic made them exclusive to the Epic Machine™ then there would be a problem but moving from Steam to Epic doesn’t remove Windows support.
Imagine Target bought Great Value (Walmart brand) and moved it from Walmart to target. Would anyone care?
It does remove easy Linux compatibility. Also you can run any storefront on steam deck, so not sure what your point is about hardware
A hypothetical Epic console.
Heroic gives Linux support and has the added benefit of being third party.
What are they being sued for? I guess I missed this?
Also I guess it could be argued they only removed it from new sales whereas people who already owned those titles on Steam still have them on Steam.
They are being accused of price fixing with the whole “can’t sell games for cheaper on other store fronts compared to the steam listing” thing
warm@kbin.earth explains it better below:
It only applies to Steam product keys though, so developers cannot sell cheap Steam keys on other platforms while still taking advantage of Steam’s services.
Oh well that’s totally fair, honestly.
It locks out real competitive pricing.
It only applies to steam keys though. Like if you want to sell on other storefronts (like Epic) for cheaper, it’s perfectly fine. You simply can’t sell steam keys on other storefronts for cheaper. It’s not really “price fixing” as much as it is “Steam ensuring their servers aren’t used to download the game unless the dev has properly paid them for the key”…
Like imagine a company wants to sell more copies of their game. So they set up their own site to sell directly to consumers, and it’s cheaper than buying on Steam. This is totally fine. Consumers can still choose to add the standalone version as a non-Steam game to be able to launch it via Steam.
It’s only a breach of contract if they start offering steam keys for that same (cheaper) price, which allows the game to be downloaded via Steam, includes achievement integrations, includes Steam’s friend list “join game” multiplayer, includes Steam Deck/Steam Machine optimizations, etc… If they want all of those nice Steam integrations, they need an official Steam key. And that Steam key can’t be sold cheaper than on Steam’s official store.
How does it do that?
Which isn’t accurate and is more nuanced involving Steam keys like another user said. For instance, Prey is on sale for $6 on the PlayStation store but still $30 on Steam.
I’m pretty sure that Amazon also says that you can’t sell things on Amazon for more than you sell the same item elsewhere.
I’ve certainly seen a video claiming that.
Why is Valve being sued for almost $900 million
“The legal action, originally filed in 2024 by digital rights campaigner Vicki Shotbolt”
Vicki is a leading campaigner for children’s digital rights, with over 20 years of senior leadership experience in national charities. She is the founder and CEO of Parent Zone, an organisation that works with families and global brands to improve the lives of children in today’s digital world.
(Source: https://steamyouoweus.co.uk/about-us/)
That is why Valve is being sued for 900 million. Because Vicki Shotbolt wanted to. Why did she want to? Here is her claim (in her own words, not mine):
But Steam’s prices appear to be the lowest?
Steam can offer the lowest prices because of the anti-competitive price restrictions that Valve often imposes on game developers and producers (the Price Parity Obligations). This means a publisher or developer would not be able to list a game on another platform as well as Steam, unless the prices offered on Steam is the same or lower. This applies to games on all other distribution stores (including online and physical stores) not just those distributed by Steam Keys. This allows Valve to maintain the monopoly position it has for PC Games as there is not real incentive for gamers to go elsewhere where a game may be cheaper (which would then in turn enable those other platforms to improve).
It is also not possible to offer add-on content on other distribution platforms for cheaper or at an earlier time: this limits the ability of rivals to compete on price and enables Valve to charge the consumer higher prices in the absence of competition. The claim argues that the add-on content is a separate product, and that through the price restrictions and inability to purchase add-on content from another distribution platform or the developer itself Valve has illegally tied these products and limited consumer choice. Consumers must then purchase via Steam and pay its commission charge.
In the UK, dominant companies are not allowed to charge excessive prices. The claim argues that Valve’s commission rate of up to 30% is excessive given: competitors lower commission rates; the way the platform operates for the consumer; and the high level of profit that Valve is making absent a viable competitor (which its behaviour directly restricts as developers are not permitted to list games at lower prices on competing platforms). This unfair commission charge is paid for by the consumer.
"[…] but Epic Games wasn’t sued when they bought Rocket League and Fall Guys to remove them from steam?
Steam has a much easier claim to be considered a monopoly. It’s a little like (note: I never said it’s exactly like or it is very much like—I only said it’s a little like) Chrome being a monopoly for web browsers—everyone chooses to install chrome on their computers when they install a PC and prefer not to use the pre-installed Edge or Safari. Very few people install Epic games, much like very few people install Firefox. If you want to game on PC, you pretty much have to install Steam to play with your friends you know? Otherwise you’re kinda lame and don’t have friends.
Because Epic and Tencent should have first pick from the IP farm.
This would be like if someone sued Walmart for letting their local store go out of business.
Walmart didn’t let local stores go out of business, it deliberately undercut local stores in order to drive them out if business.
It’s not a perfect analogy, but you get my point.
It is a scummy thing to do but the leaders of the gaming industry, Gabe aside, have always been psychopaths.
Im just a caveman, but wouldnt keeping the same price as steam mean the developers get more money from Epic Games Store at the same price point because of the lower fees?
