Gamers in the 2010s: Competition bad! Spending five minutes to install a launcher is hard!

Launchers not only take up more background resources when running, but also have their own set of network bugs that could lead to security vulnerabilities. The less of those I have to worry about, the better. Not to mention having to open every launcher to check for any game updates, but also remembering to close them…

I would argue it’s less about ‘clicking’ and more about trying to find your friends. I have a bunch of people I’ve met on valve, but now I play Destiny 2 on Bungie (where I have a few friends from Hearthstone, but they aren’t on D2) I have a few friends on Origin from Titanfall, but it’s annoying every time I have to…

This isn’t competition. This is them locking there content behind there own personal wall. Competition would apply if multiple stores were selling the same product.

Coming from PC, any console download is just. so. slow.

God.... I just got a PS4 and then bought PSN recently and coming from both Xbox and PC gaming, why is it so trash....
Download speeds are slow as fuck, (I can’t even hit 60 mbps on wired, even though both my PC and Xbox one can)

It’s beating a dead horse to mention PS4's remarkable run, I know, but I will say that it’s Xbox that has made the most impressive moves over the past couple of years. The adaptive controller, the Game Pass, the new first party studio purchases...and the X. The One X is outstanding, and you can roll your eyes if you…

The nature of the headline and the content in these articles has me awfully suspicious too. Six whole developers is hardly “locking down exclusives” in any notable way compared to all the other attempts at launching storefronts. Nothing about this service so far has me convinced that this is even close to competing…

I mean, good for them. I’m not going to end up playing their games as a result, but good for them. I already have Steam, Uplay, Battlenet, Bethesda.net, Origin, Microsoft Store, PSN, Microsoft, and Switch store front accounts to deal with, and I really, really feel like having my games in 9 different places is enough.…

When opening Kotaku.com I have Epic’s Fortnite advertising, 2 articles for the HADES game (Epic Store Exclusive) plus this one (Epic’s exclusives) in the initial page. Now, I don’t come to Kotaku for it’s “unbiased” content but hopefully they tune it down a bit.

We need a cross-distribution-platform game licensing hub, like UltraViolet and Movies Anywhere. Buy one place, use anywhere. (And fuck Movies Anywhere for causing studios to outright drop UltraViolet support.)

I agree, competition is a good thing.  But what’s in it for the consumer?  I have not read anything in this article that would intice me to use Epic’s storefront over Steam.  What?  Because Developers get a higher cut of the 60 bucks they charge?  That’s incentive for them, not for me, as a consumer.

The tone of this article makes it sounds like Steam is universally reviled as some necessary evil. The vast majority of users and developers are happy with it and I don’t see that changes so fast.

But Steam is also cluttered with features and games, the product of years of problem-solving through addition rather than streamlined subtraction, and the diehard portion of its user base that’s often responsible for elevating games to a place of visibility has relatively homogenized tastes, making the environment…

There is no way that scummy devs don’t take advantage of the “opt out of reviews” system. Sure, people can abuse reviews, but it’s also one of the few tools we customers have to defend ourselves against cashgrabs, buggy games or outright scams. There’s so many games coming out that it’s impossible for websites to…

Opting out of reviews and not having forums is a huge fuck you to consumers. I know they can be toxic but they are also how numerous developers have been pressured to actually fix their games. Taking away consumer voices is not good thing,  just because someone somewhere at some point maybe had their feelings hurt.

A single platform is more convenient for the consumer.

People download these launchers, the problem is they’re only used for one or two games.

Won’t put a dent. You know why? Look at EA’s Origin and Ubisofts UPlay. They’ve had a tonne of time to pull people. And they don’t really. There’s two reasons.

Yay! A digital storefront for every game!