Heroic is a FOSS launcher that's straight up better. They use a sponsored link to get some kickbacks when you buy GoG games thru their launcher. Seems worth doing every once in a while in order to donate to the actual best launcher for non-Steam games

You mean the thing we, the customers, have been saying from day 1 is true? How shocking.

IMO they should have put their money into making it good before pushing it on users so aggressively, instead of apparently never since it's been years and they still haven't made the user experience good.

TBH using Bottles to run an exe feels more refined than the epic games UI.

Using wine CLI comamnds is more refined than the Epic launcher

Ah Tim, here we go with the "look how brutally honest we are" schtick. Yeah gamers dislike the launcher, but it's not even about that; it's about your business practices. Did you forget the part where you took the worst pages from the Xbox/Playstation book and tried to build an exclusivity platform on PC? Trying to buy devs with massive handouts and buy users with free games? We remember, Tim. We remember the Metro Exodus launch and the rest. Personally I can't do much more than to deny you every single cent I can, but please be assured I'll be doing that, and I'm pretty sure I'm not alone. I don't even have an account with you to pick up free games because that'd be one more account that legitimizes your shitty platform. Go bankrupt at your earliest convenience please.

I don't share your frustrations. Games like Control, Alan Wake 2, and Ooblets might never have been made without Epic's funding. The Ooblets developer in particular stated that Epic's funding was crucial for their survival. I think exclusivity is a very fair and normal thing to request when funding a game. Valve does it and people are fine with that.

And the Ooblets dev was also the one who mocked people who lost interest in the game after it became epic-only - adding a second reason to skip it.

They fund games so who cares if they keep losing user information

Bit barebones reporting. Here's an article that at least quotes portions of the interview: https://wccftech.com/epic-games-launcher-is-indeed-clunky-admits-epics-tim-sweeney/ I can only partially empathize with the argument that Steam is better because of 15 years of refinement. Yes, they have a big featureset, amazing APIs, developer kit, the workshop, the list goes on. There are a lot of technical challenges here. However, what cannot be excused with this argument is the Epic Launcher UX being this clunky, lmao. Yes, making a bunch of UI is nontrivial and takes work, but its also not rocket science. The layered and staggered loading of different UI elements and overal slowness of the whole thing cannot be explained by the lifespan of Epic Launcher. Steam was just as responsive on my old Windows XP back in the day as it is now. Throw something like Dear ImGui at a bunch of juniors and they could make something that is snappier than what the Epic Launcher is now. Google made a bunch of useful metrics called [Core Web Vitals](https://developers.google.com/search/docs/appearance/core-web-vitals) that represent responsiveness pretty well. I'm sure they would score awfully on all of them.

I’ve been playing more of my old retail games that don’t require any launcher or drm beyond requiring the disc. It’s nice. I’m not exactly sure if “xfire on steroids” bloat of steam actually adds anything anymore these days. Steam is nice because my library is already there. Even the friends list has mostly been supplanted by discord now. I use the epic launcher for 1 thing, to launch Fortnite to play with my son. I don’t want more steam features, I’d rather acknowledge its existence less. Start selling games without DRM that only use the launcher to update and it’s better than steam. That’s the 1 feature it needs.

Maybe it's just me but I can't recall any occasion where Valve said "hey devs, here's a pile of money but you're not allowed to sell your game outside Steam", have any examples in mind?

It's because he squandered any goodwill or even playing field it might have by being spyware. Valve earned its trust after people fucking hated steam when it first came out

Lmfao, fuck off with this dumb bullshit. The epic launcher is exact as spyware filled as the steam launcher.

Valve never had to because they established a monopoly so developers did that on their own without Valve paying them. Meanwhile Valve has ripped off the entire gaming industry for its entire existence, charging absurd fees to gamers and developers and you guys are all so bought into their monopoly that you blindly praise them for it. Gabe Newell is a billionaire. No billionaire earned their money. Every billionaire exploited people for it.

Another thread where gamers praise Valve for ripping them off for years, and think Tim Sweeney is the devil for trying to break into the market.

Right, and GOG also "had to" purchase exclusive rights to the games on its platform and force DRM. Oh wait, that didn't happen.

Oh yeah, let's all repeat the playbook of GoG, first you just have to spend a decade establishing yourself as the only publisher able to get former Soviet gamers to pay for games rather than pirate them, then turn that trust that you built with two third party developers into a storefront selling their classic titles for them for 6 years, then use your established customer base and goodwill to try and transition into being a proper AAA storefront. Totally viable business strategy /s

Why do you think the fees are absurd?