I was pretty hyped for the new prince of persia game (the lost crown), but come to find out it’s only available on ubisoft’s proprietary launcher or epic games. Nope, and nope.
I just want to have it available on my usual storefront, Steam, but it’s been decidedly omitted. As a long time fan of the old games, this kind of hurts. Especially since many of the others -are- available on Steam.
I wonder if/when it will come out for Steam. These platform exclusivity deals need to die.
Edit: It’s also available on several consoles, my post was just from a pc gamer’s perspective.
I never understood this one. All of those platforms, be it steam, epic,. Ubisofts defunct thing or EAs even more defunct thing, are embedded browsers with a more or less obnoxious skin we all use almost exclusively to click “buy now”. All of them are overloaded with crappy, half-baked “features” nobody gives a flying toss about.
So why the heck do so many people spend the limited energy they have available to live their lives on “boycotts” and endless rants about how a game not on steam is basically unplayable for some reason.
If this game would bring you joy (which I doubt since it’s Ubisoft we are talking about, but that’s another matter), why deny yourself that joy because the launcher you interact with for literally less than a minute is shittier than your usual one?
If the launcher itself was of any importance to you, you’d use playnite or something and just be done with it all.
Don’t whip this up to some exclusivity debate. It’s not. Imagine if this was some tangible product. Would you really not buy the thing you’d really like to have just because it’s sold at a store where the shelves are crap? Because that’s essentially what you’re doing.
Because ”vote with your wallets”.
Why support a dodgy business over one of the best for consumers?
For me, I prefer Steam because of Steam Link, which allows me to play Steam games remotely on my phone.
Steam link doesn’t work for external games added into your steam library? I’m new to steam in general, but it seems weird that they’d let you add a game and not use them with link.
Yes it does. I dunno about the hardware unit, but the android app alone works with everything you have on Steam; even the non-Steam games. Just fired up The Outer Worlds Spacer Choice edition given away on EGS some weeks back added to Steam as a non-Steam game through Steam Link on my phone.
It even straight up streams your desktop, so you can launch games not even running through Steam.
I usually have problem with controller settings when playing external games via Steam Link.
“prefering” steam is completely understandable. Boycotting a game and being disappointed and angry because it’s not on steam isn’t. To me at least. Regarding steam link: if you have an Nvidia graphics card, check out Moonlight!
What we want are reliable DRM-free installers, that don’t make our PC get infected and don’t spy on us.
What we can curently get (outside of piracy), is Steam.
Piracy is looking better every day, and specifically, every time one of these services has a huge security breach.
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I’m on Linux and Valve and Itch are the only ones with first class Linux support. Everyone else you have to dick around with running their launchers through wine or lose features.
I don’t mind that epic, etc. exist; I mind the exclusives. When Epic first launched, they didn’t have payment processors in a number of countries so there was literally no way to legally play the games for people; that’s super shitty.
This “debate” has been going on for ages now. They don’t actually mind exclusivity. They’re just mad it’s not on the launcher they use. None of them care when it’s exclusively on Steam.
Steam doesn’t pay or force developers to be exclusive. And it offers benefits and features Ubisoft launcher doesn’t.
So then…you’re just admitting that you’re fine with exclusivity once Steam is where it’s exclusive to.
Nobody’s forcing any developers to be on any platform, and let’s not pretend you actually care about a platform offering a deal to devs for exclusivity. Those same devs are free to say no. But in that same line, Steam gets exclusive games for free. You’re fine with Valve exclusivity that doesn’t pay the devs but hate anyone else getting exclusivity although it does pay them? Interesting.
Lol. That’s a lot of words you’re putting in my mouth.
Steam offers no incentives for exclusivity. Others do. Devs choose to launch on steam and there’s nothing stopping them from launching elsewhere. Look at palworld: gamepass and steam and you know they got paid for gamepass.
Devs use steam because it’s where the people are. Steam has done nothing to try to be anticompetitive to other stores. Unlike said stores.
I put nothing in your mouth. Actually, quote the words I’m putting in your mouth and explain how. I merely showed the reality of words you typed. If Palworld was available exclusively on Steam would you care? If any other game you care about and wanted to play was exclusively on Steam, would there be a post or comment complaining about it?
Offering financial incentives isn’t the forcing anyone. You’re fine with Steam getting exclusives, so this has absolutely nothing to do with the concept of exclusives. Devs aren’t forced to take any incentives if they don’t want it.
But now that you mentioned it:
This is an incentive. Steam doesn’t offer money because they have pretty much a monopoly. And you guys will only buy from Steam, reinforcing it. You know you all of these stores are essentially just where you buy it right? I don’t even use EGS to launch games. It’s not some “you only get to pick one” kinda bullshit.
Yeah, because Game Pass isn’t looking to take on Steam. Game pass is a subscription service.
No, because that would be the dev’s choice. It’s also the dev’s choice to take a bribe from Epic and such, but Valve does nothing extra to encourage exclusivity.
People have and still do complain when games aren’t on GoG. Not as much anymore but it happened.
OK, we’re done. You don’t understand or acknowledge financial coercion so this is going nowhere. Byyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyye.
'tis a shame you couldn’t say what words I’d put in your mouth.
That “because” isn’t actually telling the reason. You’d be fine with it, because it’s on Steam. Any kind of exclusivity is also the devs choice, and you obviously have a problem when they choose to be exclusive to a platform you don’t use.
Apart from having the most market share, that you yourself already admitted.
I never asked about anybody else. I asked about you. Or should I take it you never complained when games aren’t also on GoG?
Oh, damn, imagine thinking that once there’s money on the table they must take it, and then at the same time, not understanding the value of a near monopoly. Steam is literally leveraging the large amount of people that will buy the game if it’s on Steam. I even acknowledged it. Me saying that they don’t have to take it is quite literally acknowledging it. But ok, byyyyyyyyyyyyyye.
It’s so unbelievably pointless! Why the fuck should I care about the damn launcher?
DRM-heavy launchers have a history of spying on PC user activity, and of leading to malware infections. All well-known launchers, today, are DRM-heavy. (I would love tips on exceptions to this!)
DRM tries to control your PC remotely. There isn’t, and never will be, a safe way to do that without increasing the risks of outside malware attacks succeeding against you and your PC. In most cases, the risk increase is quite high.
Game launchers provide a trade-off between:
Each additional launcher brings a lot more risk, and slightly less convenience.
If it was just about the convenience, I agree - who cares.
Many of us have lost entire digital game catalogs, or had to rebuild our gaming rig, or both, due to a remotely hacked game installer/service/launcher. So many of us are incredibly bullish against adding one more installer/service/launcher to our gaming rig.