The Platform Wars (Steam, Epic, GoG, etc)

[Victoria Raverna]

I'm now getting a message on my Epic client about not getting any more updates till I install the Epic Online Services. It redirects me to this page.

Epic Online Services and Epic Games Launcher 13.0.0 Update

The Epic Games Launcher is now using Epic Online Services natively to keep cross-platform in-game overlays up-to-date for integrated games.

With this change, the Epic Games Launcher will need to install a local Epic Online Services component as a prerequisite. Once you’ve installed the 13.0.0 launcher update on Windows you will begin to see messaging informing you of the changes and prompting you to complete Epic Online Services installation to receive future launcher updates.

To ensure you are able to continue to use the Epic Games Launcher we recommend getting the Epic Online Services installation completed as soon as possible. This can be done in just a few short steps from the settings menu in the Epic Games Launcher.

Epic Online Services is a set of online services originally built for Fortnite and now available to all creators for free so they can easily launch, operate, and scale their games using any engine, store or platform of their choice.

You can read more about Epic Online Services here.

Anyone installed the Epic Online Services update yet? Any issues or hiccups that might induce me to wait? I don't do online gaming on Epic so I'm not in any rush.

Hopefully it is not a Chinese governement's spyware.

I guess enough people only run Epic Games Launcher as needed that they want to install a service that always active on your computer. Can't spy on your activity with Epic Games Launcher if you keep shutting it down.

[Blackhawk]

Is there anything to back that up?

[dbt1949]

I decided to delete my Epic account. I had to send in a special request, get a secret code, and it'll take up to 14 days to complete.

[Max Peck]

Is there anything to back that up?

It's the old meme about how Epic must be compromised by the CCP because Tencent has a minority stake in the company.

[Carpet_pissr]

I will die before I let the Communists know what kind of PC games I like to play. (too naive? )

[Blackhawk]

I know.

The boycott discussion for companies with legitimate issues in R&P had me thinking about Epic lately as a prime example of why I don't boycott things just because it's the popular thing to do.

[naednek]

I have moved games for years, too. I just love the ability to be able to see which games are on which drives at a glance. As an example, there are times when I want to install something big on one of my drives and need to figure out which games to move to make space. Before I had to dig out WinDirStat to figure out which games were taking up space on A: and D:. Now I can just look and see.

you still use floppy drives?

[Blackhawk]

Heh, you know, that didn't even occur to me when I was assigning drive letters.

[Victoria Raverna]

Is there anything to back that up?

It's the old meme about how Epic must be compromised by the CCP because Tencent has a minority stake in the company.

Right. Tencent owns 40% of Epic games but if we want to boycott Epic Games because of that, we probably have to quit gaming since Tencent also owns part of a lot of game companies. For example Riot Games is 100% owned by Tencent.

Ubisoft, Activition Blizzard, Supercell, Platinum Games, Yager, Frontier Developments, Kakao, Paradox Interactive, Fatshark, Funcom, Sharkmob, Bohemia Interactive, Dontnod Entertainment, Remedy Entertainment, Klei Entertainment, Digital Extremes, Splash Damage, OtherSide Entertainment, Grinding Gear Games, Bluehole, Marvelous, Roblox Corporation,10 Chambers Collective, and Discord are other game related companies partially owned by Tencent.

[Kasey Chang]

It is a bit of PITA to keep track of games across multiple accounts.

I thought I own Battlefield 4, but I can't find any signs of the game across my various accounts, not Steam, not Origin. I have to chalk it up to watching too much of the videos.

[Carpet_pissr]

It is a bit of PITA to keep track of games across multiple accounts.

Disagree. GOG Galaxy is your friend.

[coopasonic]

It is a bit of PITA to keep track of games across multiple accounts.

It would be interesting to count up how many times Blackhawk has mentioned Playnite in response to a comment like this. In fact, I am pretty sure more than one of them is a reply to you specifically. It can be a pain to set up initially, going through all the hoops connecting your accounts, but it makes it much easier to figure out where (or if) you have a specific game.

[Victoria Raverna]

It is a bit of PITA to keep track of games across multiple accounts.

Disagree. GOG Galaxy is your friend.

I always need to reconnect Steam account to GOG Galaxy for it to continue to update. After a while the connection to Steam become offline and the only way to get it to connect again is to disconnect and reconnect. Anyone else have the same problem?

[Blackhawk]

It is a bit of PITA to keep track of games across multiple accounts.

It would be interesting to count up how many times Blackhawk has mentioned Playnite in response to a comment like this. In fact, I am pretty sure more than one of them is a reply to you specifically. It can be a pain to set up initially, going through all the hoops connecting your accounts, but it makes it much easier to figure out where (or if) you have a specific game.

It's nice having a single, automatically updated library that includes nearly every game service I have games on.

/edit - and to be clear, it's not the only option. GoG works, too, as does (the one time I tried it) Launch Box. I just preferred the fine control that Playnite offers over flashier style of the others (specifically, I like being able to give everything multiple sets of tags and filter 1000+ games down to a dozen when I'm in the mood for something.)

I use the list view, but there are other options:

[Carpet_pissr]

It is a bit of PITA to keep track of games across multiple accounts.

Disagree. GOG Galaxy is your friend.

I always need to reconnect Steam account to GOG Galaxy for it to continue to update. After a while the connection to Steam become offline and the only way to get it to connect again is to disconnect and reconnect. Anyone else have the same problem?

Yep. I’ve also noticed that it misses some titles, even when I’ve verified (in the native platform app) that I have it, and verified that that platform is connected in GOG.

So it’s not perfect, but it still beats my previous solution using Evernote.

At some point I might try playnite, but definitely not giving access to my accounts to two of these aggregators (?) at the same time. Not sure if that fear is rational or not.

[Blackhawk]

At some point I might try playnite, but definitely not giving access to my accounts to two of these aggregators (?) at the same time. Not sure if that fear is rational or not.

Playnite, at least, is basically you logging into your accounts through a custom browser with all info stored locally. Nothing, from your password to the data it accesses, ever leaves your PC. It's open source, so there's nowhere to hide any tomfoolery, as people can (and do) poke through the code.

[Kasey Chang]

I'm trying the GOG integration and looks like it has determined I have 1583 games across 5 platforms, vast majority on Steam. I also have a ton of keys I haven't redeemed from Fanatical and Humble, of course.

[Carpet_pissr]

Trying Playnite now to see if I have a preference between the two aggregators.

One glaring omission right off the bat for Playnite is that it doesn't have Playstation integration. Not a deal killer, but it's VERY nice to see my games on ALL platforms...not just PC. I have bought a couple games on PC that I forgot or didn't realize I already had on the PS.

[Blackhawk]

Don't forget LaunchBox. FWIW, the only reason that I use Playnite over the other options is that it is possible to have multiple categories of tags (more specifically, I can have a field for gameplay genre (shooter, strategy, RPG, etc), one setting (medieval, modern, sci-fi, etc), and one for miscellaneous tags (say, VR support.) That lets me set/exclude tags to find, for instance, all of my sci-fi RPGs, or all of my medieval strategy games with VR support.

If the other platforms could do that (or updated to do that), and they weren't overly bloated (I need a game organizer, not a gaming suite), I'd quite possibly switch.

[Carpet_pissr]

Don't forget LaunchBox. FWIW, the only reason that I use Playnite over the other options is that it is possible to have multiple categories of tags (more specifically, I can have a field for gameplay genre (shooter, strategy, RPG, etc), one setting (medieval, modern, sci-fi, etc), and one for miscellaneous tags (say, VR support.) That lets me set/exclude tags to find, for instance, all of my sci-fi RPGs, or all of my medieval strategy games with VR support.

If the other platforms could do that (or updated to do that), and they weren't overly bloated (I need a game organizer, not a gaming suite), I'd quite possibly switch.

Didn't know about that one, will check it out. My needs are much more superficial than yours I think. I literally just want something to show me every game I own, no matter where it is. I don't even really care about being able to launch from it or not (and in fact, if it makes the app more lightweight, less complex, etc, I would prefer that). Once I "start" a game, and really get into it, I am likely going to stick a launch shortcut on my desktop temporarily while I am playing it. I literally only use Galaxy as a reference and dbase, even though it does a lot more of course.

And the only reason I am considering other options right now is that Galaxy has missed a few of mine on various platforms. I don't know why, and don't really care, but if it missed those that I happend to know I have (and checked in the original platform where I own it), what others is it missing? I would be kinda pissed to find out I bought a game I already had somewhere, just bc Galaxy missed it.

Talk about first world problems...Jesus.

[Blackhawk]

No kidding.

Mine is because my gaming is so mood based. If I'm in the mood for a WWII turn based strategy game, there's absolutely nothing else that will scratch my itch. According to Playnite, I have... 2195 games. Now, many of those are duplicates, servers, utilities, junk games that came with a bundle, any of the massive number of free games from Epic and Amazon, etc., so, maybe...1500 games that I've actually chosen to own? Now, if I'm in the mood for a WWII turn based strategy game, that's a lot of games to scroll through looking for them, including the ones I got in a bundle in 2016 that I forgot about. But if I go into the filters and set 'Modern Military' for setting, 'Strategy' for genre, and select the 'turn based' tag, it gives me a list of just those.

At least in theory. I haven't fully tagged the entire collection yet. I don't know that I'll ever actually catch up on that.

[Victoria Raverna]

The rebooted Tomb Raider Trilogy games on Steam now use Epic Online Services for multiplayer and can prevent you from playing single player game if you don't agree to give new permission to the game to access your Epic account if you link your Steam and Epic account.

So you need Epic account to play multiplayer but still can play single player without Epic account as long as you don't have one that is linked to your Steam account. I guess this is the future of the platform wars. Since games using EOS for multiplayer can work on Steam, but games that use Steamworks for multiplayer need to be on Steam, I think more developers will use EOS so they can sell on both Steam and EGS instead of having two versions, one with Steamworks multiplayer and one with EOS multiplayer. As added bonus EOS is supposed to allow multiplayer between PC and consoles.

https://www.gamewatcher.com/news/reboot ... s-accounts

[Rumpy]

I didn't even realize the Tomb Raider reboots had multiplayer.

[Blackhawk]

*shrug*

It's the same way with a dozen other companies on Steam. Play almost any Ubisoft game, for instance, and you'll be doing through an Ubi account. Even single player. Many, many games on Steam have DRM through third party accounts. People just hate Epic so much that they single it out for doing what everyone else is doing.

FWIW, signing into Epic is what they used to replace Denuvo. I'll take Epic over Denuvo any day. Denuvo, unlike Epic, actually comes with consequences beyond conspiracy theories and paranoia.

[Carpet_pissr]

Tell me why we hates Epic again? I honestly can’t remember.

Edited for “s’s”

[Max Peck]

The fact that Epic spends piles of their Fortnite lucre to buy timed exclusives seems to be at the heart of the hate.

[Blackhawk]

That, and the Chinese are going to steal our secrets.

[Paingod]

I have... 2195 games. Now, many of those are duplicates, servers, utilities, junk games that came with a bundle, any of the massive number of free games from Epic and Amazon, etc., so, maybe...1500 games that I've actually chosen to own? Now, if I'm in the mood for a WWII turn based strategy game, that's a lot of games to scroll through looking for them, including the ones I got in a bundle in 2016 that I forgot about. But if I go into the filters and set 'Modern Military' for setting, 'Strategy' for genre, and select the 'turn based' tag, it gives me a list of just those.

At least in theory. I haven't fully tagged the entire collection yet. I don't know that I'll ever actually catch up on that.

Makes me feel like an amateur. I've got just over 500 games and have slowed WAY down on new purchases in the last two years. I've discovered I was buying games mostly to have them and not playing them much while I replayed a core set of the games I've loved over the years. I'm at a point where it takes a really special or interesting looking game for me to acquire it.

I tried the launcher you suggested and stopped using it after I "organized" maybe 20 of my titles. It was just too much work to tag every genre I felt they fit into. Instead, I open the GOG Galaxy client and scroll down the list of cover art they show from the four different platforms I have linked to it. I mostly know what each game is and I can flick past them and pick out what I might be interested in fairly easily without fighting to set it all up.

[Blackhawk]

My collection is from... 17 years? Of collecting games digitally. A ton are from the early days of Steam sales when games were two bucks, another massive chunk are free giveaways (Amazon does what, ten games a month? - those add up.) Even more are from the heyday of the bundle ("12 games for $2.99!") And a huge number are duplicates

I'd guess that there are maybe two dozen that are 'buy it as a new release' on there, and a fairly small number of 'I want this game, I will buy it' titles.

[Blackhawk]

And a huge number are duplicates

They just added an option to hide duplicate games as of yesterday. I just turned it on, and it hid 485 games - almost all of which were likely freebies.

Another thing that inflates the number - I have it set to show subscriptions, and I have GamePass. That means I have it listing everything on GamePass, even though I don't actually own them. And then there are the utilities that are imported along with the libraries (Steam lists four variations of "AMD Driver Updater", for instance.)

Take away the freebies I'll never play, junk games from bundles, non-games, and utilities, and - given what that new filter showed me - I have well under a thousand actual games that I'd ever choose to touch.

[Carpet_pissr]

I've got just over 500 games and have slowed WAY down on new purchases in the last two years. I've discovered I was buying games mostly to have them and not playing them much while I replayed a core set of the games I've loved over the years. I'm at a point where it takes a really special or interesting looking game for me to acquire it.

Yeah, I’ve also slowed down a lot due to same realization you stated. I was basically hoarding, but digitally.

I’ve also stopped adding every free game that’s offered just bc it’s free. Soo much garbage being handed out.

I’ve kind of implemented a system I use for movies and TV: there’s just so much out there that I haven’t seen, I’m pretty damn adamant about only watching what’s considered ‘the best’ (roughly 80%+ on RottenTomatoes though I will dip down to mid to low 70’s as an exception occasionally).

I once did a filter on Metacritic for all PC games, sorted by score in descending order. Realized if I ONLY played the ‘owned, not played’ games listed with 85% or more, it would probably take the rest of my life. Or at least the time I would allow myself to play.

Not to get all actuarial, but you could probably narrow it down much further and I’m sure my % score minimum would have to be raised considerably.

X amount of hours left to live based on my age, race and location
Y amount of hours that I would allow myself to ‘give’ for gaming, assuming a decreasing amount as time passes.
Z number of unplayed, owned games scoring 85%+
Etc etc.

[Blackhawk]

I've also slowed way down. I do still claim every freebie, every time. More than once there has been a game I wasn't interested in that I claimed, then several years later found myself interested in. For instance, I have zero interest in driving or sports games, but who knows if the racing bug will hit me three or four years from now? Or I'll become enamored of pixel graphics, roguelikes, or platformers (three things I don't have any interest in currently.) Hell, I just tried a mechanic simulator, something that still sounds oddly like torture, and had a blast with it, leaving me wanting more. If my interests should change, I know that I'll have a collection of related titles lined up and ready to go.

It costs nothing, and doesn't take up shelf space, so I'll go for the breadth in my collection.

Also, review aggregators are (to me), evil. They only make sense if your taste matches society's average. Mine doesn't, and I love some two-star stuff while I despise a lot of five-stars.

[Paingod]

Also, review aggregators are (to me), evil. They only make sense if your taste matches society's average. Mine doesn't, and I love some two-star stuff while I despise a lot of five-stars.

I've loved me some 2.5-star games in the past, for sure. While most of those are dogs, some are misunderstood or plain weird little gems. Maybe a bug here or there, but have gameplay you don't see elsewhere.

[Blackhawk]

And personal perspective is a big deal. A game that takes place in an environment that I enjoy exploring will always feel better than one that doesn't (example - Fallout: NV when I grew up in Nevada and dearly miss it.) Likewise a mechanic one personally likes/dislikes, a time period, an art style, a story that strikes a nerve, a licensed setting related to something I've read/watched etc. All can skew personal enjoyment way out of line. Personal experience is way, way, too variable for an aggregator to ever meaningfully convey likely enjoyment.

At best they can help you know when you might want to look a little closer at something (something well reviewed you might have skipped, or poorly reviewed to see if the flaws are a problem for you), but as a deciding factor for what I consider fun? Nah. That comes way too close to letting other people tell me what I enjoy. I prefer to decide what is fun for me, and if the reviewers agree? More power to them.

In fact, if I see something that appeals to me a lot, I'll often avoid detailed reviews entirely. I've found that a bunch of critical reviews of something can often color my own enjoyment of it, making me focus on the negatives to such a degree that I enjoy it way less than I would have if I'd just tried it out for myself. If you tell me that a certain mechanic is tedious, for instance, I'm much more likely to find it tedious than I would have if I'd never had the idea planted in my head.

[Carpet_pissr]

I get the take, but here's my rebuttal: I'm dealing with a MASSIVE backlog. I think the argument shifts for being more or less picky depending on the scale.

My thinking is that I need some kind of "quality" indicator, whether it's flawed or not, to use as a culling tool, however blunt that tool may be. Also, I think we may have different criteria based on what you posted. I am almost solely interested in the quality of the games in question, not really the tastes of others, settings, or even genre. Won't go down the rabbit hole of "But what is Quality and how do you measure it?!" ) Do "most" reviewers think this game is above or below average? Is it something special? I guess I rely on those reviews to at least point me in directions of games that "really shouldn't be missed for game enthisiasts", no matter what genre.

Metascores will surely miss some gems just as certainly as they will promote things I don't enjoy (but really, even if you don't like the genre, would you be able to argue that a PC game that gets a 95 is objectively a bad game? If so, SHOW me! ). But on the WHOLE, considering the size of my undertaking (ranking a massive list of games), I have to start somewhere. I also feel pretty confident that the number of truly great games that got low meta scoresis very low, and the truly crappy games that got super high scores is likewise low. I challenge anyone to give exceptions (which I am sure there are some, as with all things, but I also bet they are very few)

So yeah, I will miss one or two, or a handful of games that I might have liked using this method, but guess what? Given my immense backlog, I am not worried about it. If I had played even most games in my inventory, and was running into a situation where I was diving deeper and deeper into the catalog, your point makes more sense. As it is, I have games to last me until my deathbed (hopefully I won't want to play Half Life 2, Ep 2. from my deathbed...that would be weird).

Side note: I like to THINK I will enjoy ANY game with a high enough rating. That has been shown not to be true, yet I will still probably buy any game with a 95+ rating, even if it's a genre I generally don't like. It's a lesson I just can't seem to learn for whatever reason. Lizard brain gets excited at the prospect of such a near perfect game, and the I MUST POSSESS IT AND TRY IT!! instinct kicks in.

[dbt1949]

No matter how many people like and/or own a game it doesn't mean that I will like it. Nor do old games from my past that I liked a lot.

[Carpet_pissr]

No matter how many people like and/or own a game it doesn't mean that I will like it.

Of course not, but it’s likelier that you will like a game with ‘overwhelmingly positive’ user reviews on Steam than one with ‘mostly negative’ reviews.

[Blackhawk]

(Friendly argument here because it's fun to debate - your method is 100% valid for you, and I'm not even attempting to tell you you're wrong for using it!)

I am almost solely interested in the quality of the games in question, not really the tastes of others, settings, or even genre.

And there, I think, is where our psyches differ. Quality isn't why I play games. Enjoyment is. Quality is a factor (and I do use metascores on game pages as one of the many filters when deciding what to play), but it's not the main factor.

I'm dealing with a MASSIVE backlog.

And there, I think, is the other. I have a backlog of books, projects, TV shows, films, and music, too. Nothing I do will make that backlog gone when I'm in a hole in the ground. I've learned to see a backlog like a menu, or a library. The bigger it is, the more choices I have. I don't have to eat everything on the menu, and I don't have watch/play/do everything in my library/backlog. With the menu, I order what sounds good, and if I never eat the liver, I never eat the liver. It doesn't mean liver is bad, just that I don't like liver. So I will do what's fun, not what is objectively anything. What does objectivity have to do with enjoyment? Enjoyment is the realm of the subjective!

would you be able to argue that a PC game that gets a 95 is objectively a bad game?

Nope, nor have I. My experiences are unique to me - and that's the point. To address the actual question, though: Metacritic lists only nine PC games that are 95+, of which I've played and liked eight - but they only list nine. But if I open it up to 90+, I can find a bunch of games (F1 Challenge, Tiger Woods PGA Tour, Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 2, Fez, Street Fighter II, Madden NFL 2004, NHL 2001, DOTA 2 (plus a bunch more sports titles and titles I don't recognize that I'm too lazy to look up.) I won't argue that any of them are bad games. But I can say that they are in genres that have zero appeal to me. I'd rather go do the dishes and vacuum than play PC golf or PC football. They're good games. They have quality, no question, no doubt, and no argument.

But they're not games I would enjoy, just like I don't like some top-quality foods, top-quality films/TV, or top quality music. And just like I don't enjoy some top quality things, I love some low quality things. So if my goal is to have fun, then Metascores aren't all that good of a measure, in fact, they're likely going to be counterproductive, as they'll pre-eliminate many of the lower quality things I'd love.

[Victoria Raverna]

Tell me why we hates Epic again? I honestly can’t remember.

Edited for “s’s”

I don't hate Epic, just don't like them for paying for timed exclusive games which means if I want to buy those games on Steam, I have to wait a year. I bought a few games from them and also collected their free games almost every week. I decided to stop buying anything from them because their client is not as good as Steam.

As for Tomb Raider games using EOS, it doesn't affect me. I don't play multiplayer Tomb Raider and I don't have my Steam account linked to Epic.

[Victoria Raverna]

Tell me why we hates Epic again? I honestly can’t remember.

Edited for “s’s”

I don't hate Epic, just don't like them for paying for timed exclusive games which means if I want to buy those games on Steam, I have to wait a year. I bought a few games from them and also collected their free games almost every week. I decided to stop buying anything from them because their client is not as good as Steam.

As for Tomb Raider games using EOS, it doesn't affect me. I don't play multiplayer Tomb Raider and I don't have my Steam account linked to Epic.

Ok. I lied.

We can get a $10 coupon for signing up to their e-mail newsletter between 15 Oct to 15 Nov. So I signed up today and got a $10 coupon that can be used for $15 purchase. Hitman 3 with current Halloween sale is below $15, but Hitman 3 Deluxe Edition is slightly above $15, so I got that. The price I paid to get Hitman 3 Deluxe after the discount is less than $8. So now back to stop buying anything from Epic until there is another good deal.