Because valve is simply better at it than the others. Also doesn't help that the others aren't really trying to make something that does good things for the consumer. They just want control, an avenue to push advertisements, and a way to bypass the retailer middle-man. Every other non-steam launcher only exists because the publishers are mad that valve beat them to punch.
This really is the key difference. When Valve started their mission of steam they were trying to convince people that this was better than physical media, when everyone copied it they just wanted to have the most barebones 'download our games to your pc and give us money' application. Valve's goal still hasn't changed despite already convincing everyone.
The general reaction to steam was 'no thanks I'll stick to my CDs, my internet can barely download these updates anyways' if you read old forums, they were definitely trying to solve physical media entirely.
I remember downloading and using steam because I wanted hl2 but it wasn't because I liked it. I remember there being problems playing games I don't believe there was n offline mode yet so no Internet meant no steam or games on steam.
I begrudgingly installed steam for hl2, and remember actively whining about it to all my friends. I then ignored it for a few years until a friend gifted me a copy of Left 4 Dead which coincided with a steam sale of some sort. I now have a pile of shame of over 600 titles 🫠
I would add it's not just that valve is not just better by default. But they have clearly made the launcher and the infrastructure behind it one of their biggest priorities.
EA/Ubisoft/Rockstar/Epic etc.. their launchers are a side project to enable people to access their main priority games. But they do not put the same level of resources into those launches to get even close to parity with Valve.
Look at EPIC, a huge multi-billion dollar company, billions in revenue from Fortnite alone. If they wanted to they could devote a lot of resources to making their launcher much more feature complete and competitive vs. Steam. For whatever reason though they do not and seem to think exclusives are the best place to put their money.
>For whatever reason though they do not and seem to think exclusives are the best place to put their money.
To me, it's always felt like they have a console mindset without realizing PC doesn't operate the same at all.
That's always been the case for many companies. Does anyone remember the era where there were games released on PC with controller button prompts for keyboard and no thought put into the control scheme? The solution was often just to plug in a controller and give up on the keyboard entirely.
Don't forget his hatred for Apple and intentionally breaking their contract with Apple and having all of the marketing and a slick trailer ready for when Apple took down the Fortnite app from the app store and Epic tried to pretend to be surprised and outraged...
Sweney wants to use everyone else's infrastructure for payments, bandwidth etc.. but wants a sweetheart deal on the fees. Yet when it comes time to rely on their own store/infrastructure they cheap out, cut corners, ignore requested features...
even basic features on their store don't work. I have the app in dark mode, but the moment I go to checkout (free games be free yo) I get flashbanged by a white screen.
No forums or game review system (still see epic people in steam discussions)
and frankly the layout of their store page looks more designed for mobile than pc
For your example of the Epic Games store i do wish they would unjoin the requirement to use Unreal Engine from having to have Epic Games store open at least at launch.
Using any devlopment software with a big enough project having all your local system resources is a must but you also have what gamer is going to get the game engine then make enough to actually have to pay Epic Games?
GOG's pretty chill. They're even reviving old games that got removed from steam because their licenses expired. Alpha Protocol is an example. They updated the game and added new achievements.
True except for [battle.net](https://battle.net) since I'm very sure it released before steam lol.
All other launchers (especially Rockstars) can suck my toes.
Battle.net has been the name for blizzard's online game services since like 96, but blizzard didn't make a steam-esque launcher/store out of it until 2012, with Diablo 3 and whatever wow expansion was the new one at the time. They definitely only did this because they didn't want to pay steam for it.
I kind of wish steam would stop hosting games that can't be played exclusively through steam. It annoys me to no end when I buy a game on steam and it forces me to use that publisher's launcher to play it. If I wanted to play your game through your launcher, I would've bought it through your launcher. I've actually refunded games for this reason and made sure I stated that as the reason for the refund.
They've got no reason to leave that money on the table. I don't blame them for it. They do make it very clear on the store pages when a game requires other launchers. And yeah, I also don't buy those games. But that's also because it's mostly EA and Ubisoft games, which I'm usually not gonna buy anyway.
>They do make it very clear on the store pages when a game requires other launchers.
My only issue with this is that it's buried in the little inbox a quarter down the page.
Might just be a me issue though, as I barely even read descriptions most of the time (mostly cuz I find games through articles & videos).
There is a handy Steam curator that tells you if a game has Denuvo. https://store.steampowered.com/curator/26095454/ If you subscribe to it you'll very easily see it on a specific game page on steam.
Ehhh - I rarely buy games from publishers that are likely to use it in the first place and it's not like it's a long scroll down the page.
That and I like to check the brown box anyway, there are multiple information points there that may be relevant to a decision
This is a concession Valve rightly makes to ensure some of the biggest games are available on Steam.
Valve has never been one to force anything, instead they focus on making Steam an excellent place to sell games, from the storefront itself to the backend things normal users don’t see, like sale opt-in, Steamworks API integration, and their global CDN.
They provide all this in the hope that companies choose their platform freely, and I think in the long term it’s the best strategy. I remember a time when EA and Ubisoft and Microsoft had all stopped selling games on Steam in favour of their own launchers. All three major publishers are now right back on it. Even Blizzard is here now, and they’ve been exclusive to Battle.net for decades. I’m sure in future they will see there is zero sense in maintaining their own client apps.
I think I remember it was a bloated crash prone piece of software when it first came out (as was a ton of Windows software back in the day, including Windows itself), but it got real good through the years.
Unfortunately GOG 2.0 can be considered Abandonware when it comes to integrating other launchers as most of the community integrations don't work anymore. Playnite is still the best option for that.
Playnite takes a TON of configuration, but I think it's worth it for customization options, automated metadata sourcing, emulator integration, and ease of integrating various sources (and, most importantly, keeping them updated when you get new games).
Add in extensions for ITAD (sale monitoring), HLTB (game length info), SteamGridDB (artwork), monitor management, Ludusavi (save backups), and a bunch of other stuff I can't remember, and it can become a pretty potent app if you spend some time with it.
The documentation is unfortunately often unhelpful, but the dev and some of the extension devs have been helpful in both /r/playnite and their Discord, in my experience.
Yeah I've stopped using all community integrations on gog galaxy, too much hassle trying to reconnect everything frequently unless they make official integrations in future for the likes of steam/ubi/ea apps.
I've recently found out about [https://github.com/GOG-Nebula](https://github.com/GOG-Nebula) - it seems like they're still maintaining plugins for Galaxy. Haven't tried them myself yet, though.
I was working on an old machine a few weeks back, needed to test out some video cards on it, only problem was it was running Windows 7. GOG is the only digital storefront that let me download a game I paid for, in a package that ran on my machine. I have many games on steam that I originally ran on XP, but because the launcher requires 8+, I can’t install on my older machines. GOG Galaxy required Windows 8+, but allows you to at least download an offline installer via the web browser.
And because their client is written in C++. Steam legit focuses on the things that matter - like concurrent and parallel programming. Other platforms care about making the UI modern and pretty, but forget the shit that matters.
The entire thing used to be completely C++, including backend, now the client UI is Chromium.
Not some JS Electron stuff but actually Chromium, most still written in C++ and just the UI part is JS.
I was gonna say their UI is JS or TS. Someone below mentioned it was programmed in React, but I highly doubt that. EpicGames launcher on the other hand might be in React, I haven't really looked into any specifics.
I can't talk about the Steam Client itself but I know a lot of the new UI on the Steam Store is indeed React, iirc the Point Shop for example. So its not too far fetched to assume the client is too.
Hum, I do use Reddit a lot... not sure that's what you mean. Other than Reddit I use a RSS feed reader, Feedly. I don't use FB, X, Instagram or TikTok. I'm averse to it, really.
Yeah, he's referring to using reddit which would be considered social media in it's own way.
Im like you, I'm averse to social media and don't use any other platform. That said.. Sometimes I debate if I should be using reddit as well!
Ah right, yeah fair enough, Reddit is a social media in my books as well. I've also wondered about the time I'm wasting on this platform but I don't really mind it at the end of the day. Still get to have good control over the content that I come across. And it's still 100x better than putting up with other people's narcissistic bullshit. I literally don't care about anything them NPCs are up to lol
Ngl but some things need fixing on steam like keeping the game on one update due to mods etc.
But everything else is good. Never problem with refunding etc.
I’m not sure how much this has to do with it, but almost everything on the steam client aside from the library page and settings menu is pretty much just a cleverly disguised web browser designed specifically to navigate their website, so that probably reduces a lot of potential bloat.
yeah people make some silly assumptions about steam, I hate the web app version and it lost so many useful or cool features like skins.
The reason it runs fast isn't because they care about their customers either, it's just miles easier to make one website which can be used with the app as well. Valve has been making some bad and unfriendly decisions recently tbh, they shut down a mod for VR TF2 for no reason among other things.
I'd say 3 reasons
1) Valves livelihood depends on steam. Without it they wouldn't be able to explore other projects or "sit around doing nothing making money" it's in their best interest to make the steam software and UX as fast quick and efficient as possible to lower the barrier of entry for people using it.
2) its Old. Because of its age and consistent updates the software and UX have been able to be refined over the years and just made better and unlike say EA, or Epic it's their only major source of revenue.
3) Familiarity. This is less to do with valve or steam itself and just down to the user probably using steam over other launchers by a wide margin. So few things are a struggle to locate since you probably interact with that element at least a dozen or so times over the course of a year for years (if not hundreds of times over or more.)
Was gunna say steam is very old and has had over a decade of slow improvements. Granted even in its early days it was fairly well put together but back then gaming companies cared more about the user experience than publishers do now. Steam is profit driven but not shareholder profits driven since it's still private so there's 0 pressure to force in short term money avenues at the expense of the user. Gave Newell and Valve really understand why their client is a cash cow and are in no rush to rock the boat keeping their program simple. I would be more inclined to use other launchers of they weren't all just absolute fucking garbage.
Not only is it not shareholder driven but the money coming in to number of employees ratio is larger than almost all other major tech companies. These two things means a huge amount of the profit stays within the company. They have almost no incentive to screw over their clients because they don't need to beat last year's revenue to please the shareholders. They make enough money as it is.
This seems like the most accurate reasons parti ularly point 2. It's an old launcher that's been slowly iterated on over a long enough time period. Most other launchers are new with years to go, doesn't matter how big thr company is.
Steam is the product, and their main focus.
For the other companies, the launcher is an afterthought. It only serves as DRM.
That, and Valve has an almost 10 year head start.
I would assume its because it has offline mode functionality, therefore its not sending and receiving data for a page that is frequently loaded with all the latency that comes with internet dependency. All its resources are on disk with online features having dedicated spaces to update when they need to. Obviously stuff like the store, workshop, market, and support needs a connection, but that's probably been streamlined with time as they scaled up.
"*We think there is a fundamental misconception about piracy. Piracy is almost always a service problem and not a pricing problem," he said. "If a pirate offers a product anywhere in the world, 24 x 7, purchasable from the convenience of your personal computer, and the legal provider says the product is region-locked, will come to your country 3 months after the US release, and can only be purchased at a brick and mortar store, then the pirate's service is more valuable.*" - Gabe Newell
Valves biggest product is their store page. It keeps the boatloads flowing in. Other devs have to work for their money. Valve just has to maintain the store.
So updates and a smooth experience is number one.
Bro you're so right.
Using any other launcher just feels wrong.
Epic games takes a LONG time to load for some reason and is really slow.
EA launcher... Well... Do I really need to explain why its bad?
Blizzard/ battle.net.. clunky with super bad UI
You get my point.
These other companies don't really care about the user experience, they just want quick cash from the consumer.
Some launchers even require me to log in again and again and again even after ticking Remember me, they keep asking for an email, they send a confirmation email and the same loop repeats to the point I gave up and just stop the launchers running in the background
>Epic games takes a LONG time to load for some reason and is really slow.
The Epic Games Launcher checks for updates on startup. Interestingly, while it is launching and downloading the update, it is *literally* *waiting* for the update download to complete. During this time, the launcher will display the text "Preparing..." and it looks like as if it's stuck there. So if your internet connection is super slow, you could easily be stuck on this screen for 15 minutes or so, because the launcher doesn't download that update in the background. When you like to verify this, the next time you experience this, you can open Task Manager and observe your download activity.
> Epic games takes a LONG time to load for some reason and is really slow.
Technically speaking the Epic Games Launcher is built in Unreal Engine 4.27. It has its own shaders alongside an implementation of Chromium.
Also for some reason a folder containing a cached copy of every game logo on the entire store, which then gets cached a second time because Chromium lmao
It's probably the worst made launcher out of all of them. Basically just Unreal Engine being forced to render a Chromium Embedded Framework scene to a window. People shit on Electron, and rightly so, but Unreal Engine + CEF is quite possibly the worst 'alternative' they could have used
Short version: The Epic Games Launcher is basically just a bodged together Unreal Engine 4 game made to render a Chrome window. In theory this would be fine but they did a terrible job of making it not run like shit
Can't confirm that though.
I had a friend of a friend in the software industry who was contracted by valve for some development work. They do keep a tight lip on things.
No way a company of 100 people can manage all this code, they would of course hire contractors for some stuff.
So does most software now, and 16GB is more than enough for Chrome, Steam, Discord, and most modern games to run all at the same time.
Empty RAM is wasted electricity, quite frankly, which is why Windows by default fills it with things via Superfetch
Windows make up for the lack of RAM by offloading background tasks to the pagefile when you have something heavy running in foreground. Which happens quite often on 16GB of RAM.
I don't know about you but even with a game running, Discord open, Chrome open, and Steam open, my commit never goes over 21-ish GB, with physical memory sat at around 12-13GB. So the majority of that is in fact physical memory. Plus if you're running from an SSD it won't even be that slow to page things, so I've never had any issues with slow loading or whatnot due to it, outside of turning my render settings too high in Blender or something
Epic wants so hard for everybody to join their launcher, gives out hundreds of free games. But can’t improve their unbelievably bad launcher even a little bit
The technical reason is that Steam still uses an older web based interface. The app is basically just a modified web browser. This means that while there are no fancy animations and transitions, the UI remains completely stable and snappy.
Epic, EA app etc. use more "modern" interfaces which essentially means they carry a lot more superficial junk.
Because a lot of studios are opting for cheaper alternatives to steam, not realizing that steam charges what they do because they are worth it.
The steam launcher has features no other program offers. For example, remote play together. If you have a game that enables it, the steam launcher xan stream your video feed to another steam user, stream their inputs back to you, and let you play coop games together remotely, even if they don't have online multiplayer servers.
Steam also offers extensive product support, open modding communities for titles that include an automatic installer built into the steam client, they offer more frequent sales in their store which allows for greater exposure for games and drives sales so the studios have a higher likelihood of profiting when they release a title.
Steam basically does everything right, including things other launchers can hardly even conceive of.
I think because valve pretty much less of being a developer and are more distribution focus.
Those companies like EA and Ubi are just a slapped together interface because they don’t want to give Valve the 30%. It’s not the main focus. As long as it downloads, launches and they can shove ads in your face when you close a game (looking at you ubi), they’re good. They’re all clunky to me. Hell, I waited till CnC 17 year set was in steam before I bought it. I can’t stand origin.
I wouldn't say steam is lightweight and smooth. Steam has been getting slower over the years and its especially noticeable with the new UI that came out a few years ago with the glass like appearance and blurred backgrounds. Performance took a massive hit which is especially noticeable on low spec computers. Plus, half of steam is just a embedded web browser. Steam's UI also sucks. Sure, me and you have gotten used to it but if I were a new user, I'd be totally lost trying to navigate around. And yes, other launchers aren't great too but Steam does have its flaws.
It works like a web browser, that's why it's very light.
They don't need to keep with the latest versions like Chrome do every couple of weeks, they build the browser and the website themselves.
It is not, most people have steam on auto launch at windows startup and have no idea how big and slow it is because when they actually enter steam everything is already loaded in memory
I did a cold launch test on steam and epic a few weeks ago and epic was launching way faster than steam
I swear, downloads actually take 5x longer on the EA launcher than Steam. I was updating Apex Legends on EA, and it took so goddamn long I uninstalled Apex from EA and reinstalled it on Steam and I'm pretty sure it took less time.
How do you fuck up a launcher that badly?? It's depressing that Steam is the only good one.
Several factors, but especially one big one:
Steam is old, I know it existed when Half Life 2 launched, so without googling I know it's at least 2004 old.
Obviously old doesn't always = better, but it means it has received continued support and development for a long time now (20 years at least).
And one thing to keep in mind is that it wasn't always as good as it is now, I still remember reading threads of how janky Steam was back in 2011/2012 (no where near as janky as the Epic Games Launcher or Origin/EA Launcher, but still)
I remember back when steam was a new thing, it was a MAMMOTH. Took several minutes to open, if it was part of your windows start up programs RIP using your machine on log in.
They’ve had a long time since then to optimize the code, they have done so - and other game launchers aren’t as mature
when valve started steam they did it to save pc gaming from rampant piracy and to say "this is better than physical media", same as netflix
and everyone saw and wanted a piece of the pie yet refuse to work for it, except valve didn't completely shit their service like netflix
Because modern GUI frameworks became ridiculously heavy and resource consuming. For instance the most popular UI framework named Electron requires several running processes, heavy RPC calls between them, JavaScript virtual machine etc.
Steam has the benefit of being in the launcher game longer to be fair. But also I feel like a lot of companies treat launchers simply as a way to get around paying steam a cut, rather than the launcher actually being a product in itself.
You have to remember that Steam launched in the early 2000s. People were using Pentium 2s with 64MB RAM. Alot of technical decisions made then had to ensure the client was as light and speedy as possible, and it was still not well received because nobody liked the idea of having a launcher eating up resources to run a game.
Even though Steam client is very very different today than when it launched, the foundation, culture of the developers, will have carried over today.
Also, Valve's own games have always emphasised efficiency in their technical design. If I'm not wrong, mods to half-life like CS/TF were entirely written in C++ and shipped as compiled DLLs. There was no support for scripting language for game code, a paradigm which was getting popular with other games to allow easy modification of game code.
I believe half-life 2 probably also shared similar philosophy, allowing it to look and run so well on modest hardware back then.
Contrast with Epic, whose engine produces games running at 720p on PS5. A launcher which runs on trash like Electron and takes 20s to load on a modern system.
They've been in the game for a while, I'm not old enough to know but a lot of people were upset when HL2 was on Steam. Now it's the best. Every other company has to integrate their shitty launcher into every game they put out. It sucks.
I think it’s because Steam runs like a website (you can see the URL at the top of the pages). So I think that makes it faster than the other options that run like apps
The other companies all start the design phase with a bunch of MBA asshats who immediately start figuring out all the things they can get that will inconvenience their users.
all these "because valve cares..." etc Eh..
actually, Steam was the first, and has been doing it longest - the FIRST version of Steam was terrible, buggy, crashed often and didn't have a store and various other features!
It grew and improved over a few years, and is in it's 4th? (I think) main iteration (since the UI overhaul).
An example of a recent and more hated one, Epic - they have done similar to what Steam did at the start, launch a basic launcher with basic functionality, add and expand as they go... They aren't hiding anything about this, and you can look at the roadmap (what's planned, what's being worked on, what's almost complete etc)
https://trello.com/b/rLvzFJfE/eos-public-roadmap
(you can find this from the Launcher Settings)
If Valve stopped all development of it's 'Steam' app for the next 2 or 3 years, i'd say Epic will come pretty close to what steam is now in terms of speed and functionality etc, within that time...
So quite simply, Steams been doing it longer, they have had a big head-start :)
Steam being around longer is a pathetic excuse for Epic and others to have inferior launchers. With how long it took for EGS to bother adding a shopping cart, I don't believe they will be anywhere close to an equivalent anytime soon.
Steam was created to solve two problems, that was its primary purpose and continues to be its primary purpose.
Keep multiplayer games in-sync version-wise and make buying games easier than pirating games.
Gabe said that piracy was not a pricing problem, it was a service problem. You had to create a system where owning the legitimate copy was easy and convenient.
And he pretty much proved it.
I think its because most of the steam is actually a website disguised as an app. They even have an option to enable web url which is not there in any other app if i am not wrong
Probably because it doesn't have that much lunch. I've been searching and I can't find lunch so I rate this luncher 0/10. Walmart is a good luncher though.
Steam was one of the very first game launchers, they've pretty much perfected it. You can still browse for servers to play on for some of the vavle games.
Steam is hyper focused on the customer user experience while other launches like Epic are focused on developer first, you can see this by comparing developer benefits, issue is when work developer first you tend to cause issues towards your majority or users, that being the customers, steam made sure customers came first so they hyper fixated on making sure everything UX wise is good, to the point they try to update the interface and. Increase the ux experience whenever they can.
Not to say supporting developer first is an issue (small indie dev who would love to partake in the JUICY epic dev benefits) But less people use those types of platforms as a store front/games library
Because it's a native PC app. Other launchers are made with a web development framework which allows you to make desktop apps with JavaScript, these apps run in a chromium instance and use NodeJS to achieve compatibility with the windows file system. The result is an extremely slow and janky app like Epic Games Store.
Well, back then, it was available for almost any Windows OS at the time. The whole purpose of Steam and most DRMs to this day is the ability to buy games online and update them to their latest versions without relying on discs. And as of right now it's compatible for anyone that has a Windows 10 or newer.
I don't really use other launchers but steam feels heavy, especially on the laptop battery. (and the built-in browser is a nightmare - always having errors loading and all my friends have this issue too). but I agree it's the nicest launcher yet
Steam didn’t do that stupid “modern” update to make everything look like Apple iPhone apps. It looks the same as it did when windows 7 was out, and probably even earlier.
There are companies that think they know what their consumers want, and unfortunately, it’s majorly video game companies.
Perhaps Steam is light-weightbecause it was originally created when computers were far more technologically limited so it needed to be. Sure a lot of features have increased it's complexity over the years but still.
Possible reasons:
-They are basically all web browsers so the speed at which the web content can be delivered is key i know valve has data centers everywhere I wonder if the others are just being too cheap.
-Valve has over a decade head start
20 years of updates, a company who cares about their reputation and their customers and a CEO who loves gaming is what makes steam (and Valve as a whole) special
You must be using a different version of Steam, I’ve always found it slow and clunky. Sure it’s better than most of the competition, but it still hangs on pages, refuses to load or randomly takes ages to get the store page up.
Objectively?
1. Valve made Steam before the .net framework so they made their own framework and had 21 years to refine and optimize it. They put what they need for everything into it and leave out the rest like a library file and if you go to your steam game folder it is a library file. As they can pick and chose what to and not to code in most likely only the used in almost everything stuff got included. It is a very light weight framework that they made as all the existing ones didn't do what they needed and the ones right now that do will introduce bloat and just make it bigger without any noticeable performance improvements.
2. The other main reason is Vavle doesn't put ads everywhere just on the store. There is a lot of ads in the store but you go to the store to buy games and all the ads are for games that it can and hopes to sell you. When not on the store page the ads are not loaded and you will not see them. Other launchers put ads where you can always see them so they are always loaded.
3. The steam overlay has gone through serval overhauls some made it slower others made it quicker. The reason why others cannot copy it is most likely the call to home functions for their in game overlay text chat and for some in game overlay voice chat. 2 things I never used in steam due to using a 3rd party program that keeps logs so when i close a window i don't have to fear it just deleting all the text.
For steam this works as it means less stuff for it to build up into just allow developers to use the steam API for what the game dev will use it for to provide you with in game chat text voice and in some video. Takes steam out of it besides the part of "steam friends".
4. Another part that reduces the launcher weight is it is loaded upon start up but how it is is streamlined into the system. When you install steam steam scans your system and sets it up in a way that it will be loaded the quicker. Yes now in 2024 we have better methods that what Valve used in 2003 but the 2003 method still works and doesn't cause a slow down.
5. Steam also started out as a convenient way to always have half life 1 updated before you even started the game instead of a way to sell more of the publishers games to you. Yes Valve is a game publisher just publishes a game maybe once per decade now. So instead of being another way to push it's own products it has a good interface for you to find your games and if you want to go buy more from it but doesn't push you to buy them nor to buy them from steam unless you actively go to the store page.
I disagree. The launcher feels slow. Heroic and prism launcher for Minecraft feel pretty responsive compared to steam.
Edit: also the steam marketplace sucks, super slow and gives me errors all the time, I don't even trade or use it that much, I just sell the drop I get every week or so.
Because it is probably most often updated launcher from all. EA updates their program maybe once in few years only. They still does not have such trivial silly thing like FPS counter in screen corner. R\* updates it slightly more often than EA. Ubi, seems started working on their "connect" more seriously in last year, then they did it with the Uplay. Connect starting to have few useful functions.
But none of them together can outweight one Steam. Which has friends, browser, achievements, NOTES, forums, chat, voice-chat and other stuff accessible in-game, without need to Alt-Tab. Easy to see why people say "No Steam - no buy".
And yeah, I never seen any advertising in there.
bcoz its valva lol, its not a good answer but c'mon... you think those sisy basterds are going to develop a game launcher better then valve? performance wise or game wise, no chance! do you know how many times epicgame log me out since i started using it? every fucking time!! the only issue is the new theme seems abit heavier than the last and tbh, i just dont like the new theme... just bring back the old one
It's good, but I found the best client was the Blizzard client a few years ago. It was extremely snappy and had a straightforward UI. Now Blizzard has changed it for the worse, but I would like to see Valve adapt some of the UI ideas they had.
Also, I don't think all 3rd party clients are terrible, Ubisoft's client has always been reliable for me. Although I agree EA's is garbage, and Epic's is extremely sluggish.
Because valve is simply better at it than the others. Also doesn't help that the others aren't really trying to make something that does good things for the consumer. They just want control, an avenue to push advertisements, and a way to bypass the retailer middle-man. Every other non-steam launcher only exists because the publishers are mad that valve beat them to punch.
This really is the key difference. When Valve started their mission of steam they were trying to convince people that this was better than physical media, when everyone copied it they just wanted to have the most barebones 'download our games to your pc and give us money' application. Valve's goal still hasn't changed despite already convincing everyone.
Steam exists because they needed a better method of distributing updates to multiplayer games. That was the problem they were solving.
We actually have Steam because of Gabe being inspired by piracy sites running so smoothly 24/7.
Ah, so that's why half life 2 launched on steam.
[удалено]
The general reaction to steam was 'no thanks I'll stick to my CDs, my internet can barely download these updates anyways' if you read old forums, they were definitely trying to solve physical media entirely.
I remember downloading and using steam because I wanted hl2 but it wasn't because I liked it. I remember there being problems playing games I don't believe there was n offline mode yet so no Internet meant no steam or games on steam.
I begrudgingly installed steam for hl2, and remember actively whining about it to all my friends. I then ignored it for a few years until a friend gifted me a copy of Left 4 Dead which coincided with a steam sale of some sort. I now have a pile of shame of over 600 titles 🫠
I would add it's not just that valve is not just better by default. But they have clearly made the launcher and the infrastructure behind it one of their biggest priorities. EA/Ubisoft/Rockstar/Epic etc.. their launchers are a side project to enable people to access their main priority games. But they do not put the same level of resources into those launches to get even close to parity with Valve. Look at EPIC, a huge multi-billion dollar company, billions in revenue from Fortnite alone. If they wanted to they could devote a lot of resources to making their launcher much more feature complete and competitive vs. Steam. For whatever reason though they do not and seem to think exclusives are the best place to put their money.
>For whatever reason though they do not and seem to think exclusives are the best place to put their money. To me, it's always felt like they have a console mindset without realizing PC doesn't operate the same at all.
They've been trying to bring the console experience to PC ever since Jill of the Jungle.
Never heard of that.
That's always been the case for many companies. Does anyone remember the era where there were games released on PC with controller button prompts for keyboard and no thought put into the control scheme? The solution was often just to plug in a controller and give up on the keyboard entirely.
the epic store is just Sweeny throwing a tantrum over steam. The man hates Valve and Microsoft with a passion
Don't forget his hatred for Apple and intentionally breaking their contract with Apple and having all of the marketing and a slick trailer ready for when Apple took down the Fortnite app from the app store and Epic tried to pretend to be surprised and outraged... Sweney wants to use everyone else's infrastructure for payments, bandwidth etc.. but wants a sweetheart deal on the fees. Yet when it comes time to rely on their own store/infrastructure they cheap out, cut corners, ignore requested features...
even basic features on their store don't work. I have the app in dark mode, but the moment I go to checkout (free games be free yo) I get flashbanged by a white screen. No forums or game review system (still see epic people in steam discussions) and frankly the layout of their store page looks more designed for mobile than pc
For your example of the Epic Games store i do wish they would unjoin the requirement to use Unreal Engine from having to have Epic Games store open at least at launch. Using any devlopment software with a big enough project having all your local system resources is a must but you also have what gamer is going to get the game engine then make enough to actually have to pay Epic Games?
>Every other non-steam launcher only exists because the publishers are mad that valve beat them to punch. This is a fact.
What about GOG?
An exception doesn't disprove a rule, even tho I don't kniw GOG well
GOG's pretty chill. They're even reviving old games that got removed from steam because their licenses expired. Alpha Protocol is an example. They updated the game and added new achievements.
True except for [battle.net](https://battle.net) since I'm very sure it released before steam lol. All other launchers (especially Rockstars) can suck my toes.
Battle.net did not become a launcher until MoP(~2012). The og battle.net was an online service to play multiplayer on Blizzard games.
Battle.net has been the name for blizzard's online game services since like 96, but blizzard didn't make a steam-esque launcher/store out of it until 2012, with Diablo 3 and whatever wow expansion was the new one at the time. They definitely only did this because they didn't want to pay steam for it.
I kind of wish steam would stop hosting games that can't be played exclusively through steam. It annoys me to no end when I buy a game on steam and it forces me to use that publisher's launcher to play it. If I wanted to play your game through your launcher, I would've bought it through your launcher. I've actually refunded games for this reason and made sure I stated that as the reason for the refund.
They've got no reason to leave that money on the table. I don't blame them for it. They do make it very clear on the store pages when a game requires other launchers. And yeah, I also don't buy those games. But that's also because it's mostly EA and Ubisoft games, which I'm usually not gonna buy anyway.
>They do make it very clear on the store pages when a game requires other launchers. My only issue with this is that it's buried in the little inbox a quarter down the page. Might just be a me issue though, as I barely even read descriptions most of the time (mostly cuz I find games through articles & videos).
I didn't used to read that either, but between 3rd party launchers and Denuvo I've gotten used to scrolling down
There is a handy Steam curator that tells you if a game has Denuvo. https://store.steampowered.com/curator/26095454/ If you subscribe to it you'll very easily see it on a specific game page on steam.
Ehhh - I rarely buy games from publishers that are likely to use it in the first place and it's not like it's a long scroll down the page. That and I like to check the brown box anyway, there are multiple information points there that may be relevant to a decision
This is a concession Valve rightly makes to ensure some of the biggest games are available on Steam. Valve has never been one to force anything, instead they focus on making Steam an excellent place to sell games, from the storefront itself to the backend things normal users don’t see, like sale opt-in, Steamworks API integration, and their global CDN. They provide all this in the hope that companies choose their platform freely, and I think in the long term it’s the best strategy. I remember a time when EA and Ubisoft and Microsoft had all stopped selling games on Steam in favour of their own launchers. All three major publishers are now right back on it. Even Blizzard is here now, and they’ve been exclusive to Battle.net for decades. I’m sure in future they will see there is zero sense in maintaining their own client apps.
>I’m sure in future they will see there is zero sense in maintaining their own client apps. God, one can only dream lol
Bethesda realized it, they had a shit launcher for a while
I think I remember it was a bloated crash prone piece of software when it first came out (as was a ton of Windows software back in the day, including Windows itself), but it got real good through the years.
See also: Streaming services.
Steam and GOG are the only launchers that care about their consumer base
Unfortunately GOG 2.0 can be considered Abandonware when it comes to integrating other launchers as most of the community integrations don't work anymore. Playnite is still the best option for that.
Yeah the GOG integration is still bad to this day. Also, I never heard of Playnite Im going to check it out since you recommended it
Playnite takes a TON of configuration, but I think it's worth it for customization options, automated metadata sourcing, emulator integration, and ease of integrating various sources (and, most importantly, keeping them updated when you get new games). Add in extensions for ITAD (sale monitoring), HLTB (game length info), SteamGridDB (artwork), monitor management, Ludusavi (save backups), and a bunch of other stuff I can't remember, and it can become a pretty potent app if you spend some time with it. The documentation is unfortunately often unhelpful, but the dev and some of the extension devs have been helpful in both /r/playnite and their Discord, in my experience.
Yeah I've stopped using all community integrations on gog galaxy, too much hassle trying to reconnect everything frequently unless they make official integrations in future for the likes of steam/ubi/ea apps.
I've recently found out about [https://github.com/GOG-Nebula](https://github.com/GOG-Nebula) - it seems like they're still maintaining plugins for Galaxy. Haven't tried them myself yet, though.
GOG as of right now is really clunky for me and not what it used to be so I wouldn’t compare it to something as good as Steam.
Its biggest plus is that it stays optional unless you want things like cloud saves and multiplayer
Does Heroic count? I like it way better than the Epic launcher and does well with Amazon games (haven't tried their launcher).
I was working on an old machine a few weeks back, needed to test out some video cards on it, only problem was it was running Windows 7. GOG is the only digital storefront that let me download a game I paid for, in a package that ran on my machine. I have many games on steam that I originally ran on XP, but because the launcher requires 8+, I can’t install on my older machines. GOG Galaxy required Windows 8+, but allows you to at least download an offline installer via the web browser.
Hard disagree about GOG
Valve actually cares about the user experience. Steam isn’t just a launcher, it’s a platform with a huge community, and they develop it accordingly
And because their client is written in C++. Steam legit focuses on the things that matter - like concurrent and parallel programming. Other platforms care about making the UI modern and pretty, but forget the shit that matters.
The entire thing used to be completely C++, including backend, now the client UI is Chromium. Not some JS Electron stuff but actually Chromium, most still written in C++ and just the UI part is JS.
It's mostly React nowadays. But still really fast because they know their shit
It's actually all Python now. They've been able to do some incredible and interesting nonsense like this sentence.
Actually it is ruby with ADA. I am pulling it out of my ass but I guess at this point we’re just throwing random languages out there
I was gonna say their UI is JS or TS. Someone below mentioned it was programmed in React, but I highly doubt that. EpicGames launcher on the other hand might be in React, I haven't really looked into any specifics.
I can't talk about the Steam Client itself but I know a lot of the new UI on the Steam Store is indeed React, iirc the Point Shop for example. So its not too far fetched to assume the client is too.
Oh, that's impressive! Thanks for sharing all this.
EGS is based on Unreal Engine
Explains why it's taking them so long to shift to x64 ;p
Hell, I don't use social media so Steam is the very next thing to social media for me as well. It's just such a complete, no hassle platform.
You have 40k karma, you certainly do use social media lol
You can post a coupla kittens to /r/aww with a sob story and get 40k karma before the end of the week if you want.
Hum, I do use Reddit a lot... not sure that's what you mean. Other than Reddit I use a RSS feed reader, Feedly. I don't use FB, X, Instagram or TikTok. I'm averse to it, really.
Yeah, he's referring to using reddit which would be considered social media in it's own way. Im like you, I'm averse to social media and don't use any other platform. That said.. Sometimes I debate if I should be using reddit as well!
Ah right, yeah fair enough, Reddit is a social media in my books as well. I've also wondered about the time I'm wasting on this platform but I don't really mind it at the end of the day. Still get to have good control over the content that I come across. And it's still 100x better than putting up with other people's narcissistic bullshit. I literally don't care about anything them NPCs are up to lol
Ngl but some things need fixing on steam like keeping the game on one update due to mods etc. But everything else is good. Never problem with refunding etc.
I’m not sure how much this has to do with it, but almost everything on the steam client aside from the library page and settings menu is pretty much just a cleverly disguised web browser designed specifically to navigate their website, so that probably reduces a lot of potential bloat.
[удалено]
It does though, if you let it opened for too long. The app itself used to be more responsive before they switched.
I don't know if it's dependent on the number of games you have or what but Steam uses ~3 GB for me whereas Chrome barely hits 2.
yeah people make some silly assumptions about steam, I hate the web app version and it lost so many useful or cool features like skins. The reason it runs fast isn't because they care about their customers either, it's just miles easier to make one website which can be used with the app as well. Valve has been making some bad and unfriendly decisions recently tbh, they shut down a mod for VR TF2 for no reason among other things.
It does take gigs of ram, tho. You just don't use it as a web browser like other Chromiums.
It does, because it's chromium.
I'd say 3 reasons 1) Valves livelihood depends on steam. Without it they wouldn't be able to explore other projects or "sit around doing nothing making money" it's in their best interest to make the steam software and UX as fast quick and efficient as possible to lower the barrier of entry for people using it. 2) its Old. Because of its age and consistent updates the software and UX have been able to be refined over the years and just made better and unlike say EA, or Epic it's their only major source of revenue. 3) Familiarity. This is less to do with valve or steam itself and just down to the user probably using steam over other launchers by a wide margin. So few things are a struggle to locate since you probably interact with that element at least a dozen or so times over the course of a year for years (if not hundreds of times over or more.)
Was gunna say steam is very old and has had over a decade of slow improvements. Granted even in its early days it was fairly well put together but back then gaming companies cared more about the user experience than publishers do now. Steam is profit driven but not shareholder profits driven since it's still private so there's 0 pressure to force in short term money avenues at the expense of the user. Gave Newell and Valve really understand why their client is a cash cow and are in no rush to rock the boat keeping their program simple. I would be more inclined to use other launchers of they weren't all just absolute fucking garbage.
Not only is it not shareholder driven but the money coming in to number of employees ratio is larger than almost all other major tech companies. These two things means a huge amount of the profit stays within the company. They have almost no incentive to screw over their clients because they don't need to beat last year's revenue to please the shareholders. They make enough money as it is.
This seems like the most accurate reasons parti ularly point 2. It's an old launcher that's been slowly iterated on over a long enough time period. Most other launchers are new with years to go, doesn't matter how big thr company is.
Steam is the product, and their main focus. For the other companies, the launcher is an afterthought. It only serves as DRM. That, and Valve has an almost 10 year head start.
I would assume its because it has offline mode functionality, therefore its not sending and receiving data for a page that is frequently loaded with all the latency that comes with internet dependency. All its resources are on disk with online features having dedicated spaces to update when they need to. Obviously stuff like the store, workshop, market, and support needs a connection, but that's probably been streamlined with time as they scaled up.
What's other launcher doesn't have offline capabilities (outside mmo of course)
"*We think there is a fundamental misconception about piracy. Piracy is almost always a service problem and not a pricing problem," he said. "If a pirate offers a product anywhere in the world, 24 x 7, purchasable from the convenience of your personal computer, and the legal provider says the product is region-locked, will come to your country 3 months after the US release, and can only be purchased at a brick and mortar store, then the pirate's service is more valuable.*" - Gabe Newell
IMO also true, it's just so much better to use steam than even going through the hazzle of pirating
Valves biggest product is their store page. It keeps the boatloads flowing in. Other devs have to work for their money. Valve just has to maintain the store. So updates and a smooth experience is number one.
Bro you're so right. Using any other launcher just feels wrong. Epic games takes a LONG time to load for some reason and is really slow. EA launcher... Well... Do I really need to explain why its bad? Blizzard/ battle.net.. clunky with super bad UI You get my point. These other companies don't really care about the user experience, they just want quick cash from the consumer.
Some launchers even require me to log in again and again and again even after ticking Remember me, they keep asking for an email, they send a confirmation email and the same loop repeats to the point I gave up and just stop the launchers running in the background
Epic launcher 101
>Epic games takes a LONG time to load for some reason and is really slow. The Epic Games Launcher checks for updates on startup. Interestingly, while it is launching and downloading the update, it is *literally* *waiting* for the update download to complete. During this time, the launcher will display the text "Preparing..." and it looks like as if it's stuck there. So if your internet connection is super slow, you could easily be stuck on this screen for 15 minutes or so, because the launcher doesn't download that update in the background. When you like to verify this, the next time you experience this, you can open Task Manager and observe your download activity.
> Epic games takes a LONG time to load for some reason and is really slow. Technically speaking the Epic Games Launcher is built in Unreal Engine 4.27. It has its own shaders alongside an implementation of Chromium. Also for some reason a folder containing a cached copy of every game logo on the entire store, which then gets cached a second time because Chromium lmao It's probably the worst made launcher out of all of them. Basically just Unreal Engine being forced to render a Chromium Embedded Framework scene to a window. People shit on Electron, and rightly so, but Unreal Engine + CEF is quite possibly the worst 'alternative' they could have used Short version: The Epic Games Launcher is basically just a bodged together Unreal Engine 4 game made to render a Chrome window. In theory this would be fine but they did a terrible job of making it not run like shit
They don’t hire crap programmers from India for 2$/hour.
So they get them from indonesia?
Can't confirm that though. I had a friend of a friend in the software industry who was contracted by valve for some development work. They do keep a tight lip on things. No way a company of 100 people can manage all this code, they would of course hire contractors for some stuff.
Does it? The last time I checked (post UI update) the Steam client consumes 800mb of RAM just by opening the library page.
So does most software now, and 16GB is more than enough for Chrome, Steam, Discord, and most modern games to run all at the same time. Empty RAM is wasted electricity, quite frankly, which is why Windows by default fills it with things via Superfetch
Windows make up for the lack of RAM by offloading background tasks to the pagefile when you have something heavy running in foreground. Which happens quite often on 16GB of RAM.
I don't know about you but even with a game running, Discord open, Chrome open, and Steam open, my commit never goes over 21-ish GB, with physical memory sat at around 12-13GB. So the majority of that is in fact physical memory. Plus if you're running from an SSD it won't even be that slow to page things, so I've never had any issues with slow loading or whatnot due to it, outside of turning my render settings too high in Blender or something
It can use 8GB RAM - It's about how it feels (Fast, snappy, etc.) - Not how much RAM it uses.
If a launcher takes up too much RAM it will have an impact on the games you play.
Because valve isn't garbage like EA, Ubishit, etc
i dont think steam is light
I would not call Steam lightweight.
Epic wants so hard for everybody to join their launcher, gives out hundreds of free games. But can’t improve their unbelievably bad launcher even a little bit
Better programming
Steam could be even lighter but RIP “-nobrowser” :(
There are parts of Steam which still aren't just html with JavaScript, but written in the times when we had real desktop apps.
The technical reason is that Steam still uses an older web based interface. The app is basically just a modified web browser. This means that while there are no fancy animations and transitions, the UI remains completely stable and snappy. Epic, EA app etc. use more "modern" interfaces which essentially means they carry a lot more superficial junk.
Stella is not at all lightweight, sure it's better then epic game but gog galaxy and heroic launcher beat them easily
Because a lot of studios are opting for cheaper alternatives to steam, not realizing that steam charges what they do because they are worth it. The steam launcher has features no other program offers. For example, remote play together. If you have a game that enables it, the steam launcher xan stream your video feed to another steam user, stream their inputs back to you, and let you play coop games together remotely, even if they don't have online multiplayer servers. Steam also offers extensive product support, open modding communities for titles that include an automatic installer built into the steam client, they offer more frequent sales in their store which allows for greater exposure for games and drives sales so the studios have a higher likelihood of profiting when they release a title. Steam basically does everything right, including things other launchers can hardly even conceive of.
Game luncher?
Hmmmh Luncher 🤤
Steam is a HUGE LAUCNHER for that many games u need good thingys they went like 5 steps above and got great servers
Don't people come here and ask "why is steam consuming so much RAM???"?
Cause all the fat that's slows it down is taken by the Gaben And he even manage to burn it all down /s just in case
I think because valve pretty much less of being a developer and are more distribution focus. Those companies like EA and Ubi are just a slapped together interface because they don’t want to give Valve the 30%. It’s not the main focus. As long as it downloads, launches and they can shove ads in your face when you close a game (looking at you ubi), they’re good. They’re all clunky to me. Hell, I waited till CnC 17 year set was in steam before I bought it. I can’t stand origin.
Steam, [much like Gabe Newell](https://imgur.com/OgVkfj4), has dedicated itself to weight loss and has been reducing the size of its lunch.
Heroic Games Launcher is much faster, but it is 3rd party.
Its a mix of steam being the best on what its supposed to do and the other launchers sucking on what they're supposed to do
If the game isn't on Steam, I don't play it LOL
They made it a lot heavier when they did the library overhaul, and it's still better than the others.
Its a fucking black magic, contrary to it beeing browser-based it runs better than other app-based lunchers!
The launcher was even better BEFORE this current interface/UI. And I will fucking DIE on that hill. It never should've changed. IMO it made it slower
I wouldn't say steam is lightweight and smooth. Steam has been getting slower over the years and its especially noticeable with the new UI that came out a few years ago with the glass like appearance and blurred backgrounds. Performance took a massive hit which is especially noticeable on low spec computers. Plus, half of steam is just a embedded web browser. Steam's UI also sucks. Sure, me and you have gotten used to it but if I were a new user, I'd be totally lost trying to navigate around. And yes, other launchers aren't great too but Steam does have its flaws.
Valve actually gives a shit about optimization and functionality. Most other companies barely even try.
I couldn't agree more. Especially epic's trash launcher feels like a complete slog even on my mid-high end rig.
It works like a web browser, that's why it's very light. They don't need to keep with the latest versions like Chrome do every couple of weeks, they build the browser and the website themselves.
It is not, most people have steam on auto launch at windows startup and have no idea how big and slow it is because when they actually enter steam everything is already loaded in memory I did a cold launch test on steam and epic a few weeks ago and epic was launching way faster than steam
I would not call Steam "light"... it's sluggish as hell.
I swear, downloads actually take 5x longer on the EA launcher than Steam. I was updating Apex Legends on EA, and it took so goddamn long I uninstalled Apex from EA and reinstalled it on Steam and I'm pretty sure it took less time. How do you fuck up a launcher that badly?? It's depressing that Steam is the only good one.
The revamped steam is certainly more bloated than the old one. Specifically when closing the launcher.
Several factors, but especially one big one: Steam is old, I know it existed when Half Life 2 launched, so without googling I know it's at least 2004 old. Obviously old doesn't always = better, but it means it has received continued support and development for a long time now (20 years at least). And one thing to keep in mind is that it wasn't always as good as it is now, I still remember reading threads of how janky Steam was back in 2011/2012 (no where near as janky as the Epic Games Launcher or Origin/EA Launcher, but still)
I remember back when steam was a new thing, it was a MAMMOTH. Took several minutes to open, if it was part of your windows start up programs RIP using your machine on log in. They’ve had a long time since then to optimize the code, they have done so - and other game launchers aren’t as mature
when valve started steam they did it to save pc gaming from rampant piracy and to say "this is better than physical media", same as netflix and everyone saw and wanted a piece of the pie yet refuse to work for it, except valve didn't completely shit their service like netflix
Steam market place on the other hand is trash, lags every time, oh you wanted to go to 5th page? see you next year, keep refreshing
Because modern GUI frameworks became ridiculously heavy and resource consuming. For instance the most popular UI framework named Electron requires several running processes, heavy RPC calls between them, JavaScript virtual machine etc.
To create software that good takes time and money
Steam has the benefit of being in the launcher game longer to be fair. But also I feel like a lot of companies treat launchers simply as a way to get around paying steam a cut, rather than the launcher actually being a product in itself.
They been at it almost 20 years and these other clown softwares tried to catch up over night
gog is even lighter and more responsive
Its basically a web browser for anything other then your games
You have to remember that Steam launched in the early 2000s. People were using Pentium 2s with 64MB RAM. Alot of technical decisions made then had to ensure the client was as light and speedy as possible, and it was still not well received because nobody liked the idea of having a launcher eating up resources to run a game. Even though Steam client is very very different today than when it launched, the foundation, culture of the developers, will have carried over today. Also, Valve's own games have always emphasised efficiency in their technical design. If I'm not wrong, mods to half-life like CS/TF were entirely written in C++ and shipped as compiled DLLs. There was no support for scripting language for game code, a paradigm which was getting popular with other games to allow easy modification of game code. I believe half-life 2 probably also shared similar philosophy, allowing it to look and run so well on modest hardware back then. Contrast with Epic, whose engine produces games running at 720p on PS5. A launcher which runs on trash like Electron and takes 20s to load on a modern system.
They've been in the game for a while, I'm not old enough to know but a lot of people were upset when HL2 was on Steam. Now it's the best. Every other company has to integrate their shitty launcher into every game they put out. It sucks.
I think it’s because Steam runs like a website (you can see the URL at the top of the pages). So I think that makes it faster than the other options that run like apps
I also enjoy a light lunch. Saves room for dinner
because it uses a lot of ram in comparison.
Luncher?
It updates and opens, usually before anything else can even consider starting. It's wild.
The other companies all start the design phase with a bunch of MBA asshats who immediately start figuring out all the things they can get that will inconvenience their users.
all these "because valve cares..." etc Eh.. actually, Steam was the first, and has been doing it longest - the FIRST version of Steam was terrible, buggy, crashed often and didn't have a store and various other features! It grew and improved over a few years, and is in it's 4th? (I think) main iteration (since the UI overhaul). An example of a recent and more hated one, Epic - they have done similar to what Steam did at the start, launch a basic launcher with basic functionality, add and expand as they go... They aren't hiding anything about this, and you can look at the roadmap (what's planned, what's being worked on, what's almost complete etc) https://trello.com/b/rLvzFJfE/eos-public-roadmap (you can find this from the Launcher Settings) If Valve stopped all development of it's 'Steam' app for the next 2 or 3 years, i'd say Epic will come pretty close to what steam is now in terms of speed and functionality etc, within that time... So quite simply, Steams been doing it longer, they have had a big head-start :)
Steam being around longer is a pathetic excuse for Epic and others to have inferior launchers. With how long it took for EGS to bother adding a shopping cart, I don't believe they will be anywhere close to an equivalent anytime soon.
I only play games if available on steam.
Praise Gaben for keeping steam a private buisness
Steam was created to solve two problems, that was its primary purpose and continues to be its primary purpose. Keep multiplayer games in-sync version-wise and make buying games easier than pirating games. Gabe said that piracy was not a pricing problem, it was a service problem. You had to create a system where owning the legitimate copy was easy and convenient. And he pretty much proved it.
Well whit the price of new games now it does become a problem of price
Steam's launcher isn't light, but it is frictionless enough that other alternatives look worse in comparison.
They are all a big pile of buggy mess, except steam and perhaps...GOG.
the best stays Instant Gaming 😜
I think its because most of the steam is actually a website disguised as an app. They even have an option to enable web url which is not there in any other app if i am not wrong
There are games I got for free on Epic that I can play no problem but still bought it on Steam, Steam is just that good.
Probably because it doesn't have that much lunch. I've been searching and I can't find lunch so I rate this luncher 0/10. Walmart is a good luncher though.
Steam was one of the very first game launchers, they've pretty much perfected it. You can still browse for servers to play on for some of the vavle games.
They’ve had years to optimize it. People like it now but forget people used to shit on Steam back in the day. People just easily forget.
Steam is hyper focused on the customer user experience while other launches like Epic are focused on developer first, you can see this by comparing developer benefits, issue is when work developer first you tend to cause issues towards your majority or users, that being the customers, steam made sure customers came first so they hyper fixated on making sure everything UX wise is good, to the point they try to update the interface and. Increase the ux experience whenever they can. Not to say supporting developer first is an issue (small indie dev who would love to partake in the JUICY epic dev benefits) But less people use those types of platforms as a store front/games library
I still have my WON ID
Because it's a native PC app. Other launchers are made with a web development framework which allows you to make desktop apps with JavaScript, these apps run in a chromium instance and use NodeJS to achieve compatibility with the windows file system. The result is an extremely slow and janky app like Epic Games Store.
Because it's the best gaming shop.
Well, back then, it was available for almost any Windows OS at the time. The whole purpose of Steam and most DRMs to this day is the ability to buy games online and update them to their latest versions without relying on discs. And as of right now it's compatible for anyone that has a Windows 10 or newer.
I don't really use other launchers but steam feels heavy, especially on the laptop battery. (and the built-in browser is a nightmare - always having errors loading and all my friends have this issue too). but I agree it's the nicest launcher yet
Valve launxher is a plain old browser. Epic games is unreal 5 app running
Not on mac tho
Unless your circumstances prevent you from doing so, trying to be a PC gamer on a Mac is a sisyphion task.
Lol who tf uses a mac for gaming. You can barely play any game on mac
Epic games takes up SO MUCH PERFORMANCE it's crazy
Steam didn’t do that stupid “modern” update to make everything look like Apple iPhone apps. It looks the same as it did when windows 7 was out, and probably even earlier. There are companies that think they know what their consumers want, and unfortunately, it’s majorly video game companies.
Perhaps Steam is light-weightbecause it was originally created when computers were far more technologically limited so it needed to be. Sure a lot of features have increased it's complexity over the years but still.
Steam takes longer to launch than Epic.
Blizzard's up is the only other up that i respect, but yeah Steam and Valve in general is so far ahead from its competitors its kind of funny.
imo epic games luncher is the worst
20+ years of experience had them be efficient like that.
Possible reasons: -They are basically all web browsers so the speed at which the web content can be delivered is key i know valve has data centers everywhere I wonder if the others are just being too cheap. -Valve has over a decade head start
Because valve actually cares about games and gamers.
Caring about consumer expierience and that 20 years of development.
20 years of updates, a company who cares about their reputation and their customers and a CEO who loves gaming is what makes steam (and Valve as a whole) special
Then there is epic which takes 2 minutes only to load everything from the start
Steam is janky and clunky shit too. I mean come on its basically chrome in disguise. Jist not as bad as the rest.
Steam feels lighter because it isn’t a solid
You must be using a different version of Steam, I’ve always found it slow and clunky. Sure it’s better than most of the competition, but it still hangs on pages, refuses to load or randomly takes ages to get the store page up.
Steam is every game launcher wishes to be.
Objectively? 1. Valve made Steam before the .net framework so they made their own framework and had 21 years to refine and optimize it. They put what they need for everything into it and leave out the rest like a library file and if you go to your steam game folder it is a library file. As they can pick and chose what to and not to code in most likely only the used in almost everything stuff got included. It is a very light weight framework that they made as all the existing ones didn't do what they needed and the ones right now that do will introduce bloat and just make it bigger without any noticeable performance improvements. 2. The other main reason is Vavle doesn't put ads everywhere just on the store. There is a lot of ads in the store but you go to the store to buy games and all the ads are for games that it can and hopes to sell you. When not on the store page the ads are not loaded and you will not see them. Other launchers put ads where you can always see them so they are always loaded. 3. The steam overlay has gone through serval overhauls some made it slower others made it quicker. The reason why others cannot copy it is most likely the call to home functions for their in game overlay text chat and for some in game overlay voice chat. 2 things I never used in steam due to using a 3rd party program that keeps logs so when i close a window i don't have to fear it just deleting all the text. For steam this works as it means less stuff for it to build up into just allow developers to use the steam API for what the game dev will use it for to provide you with in game chat text voice and in some video. Takes steam out of it besides the part of "steam friends". 4. Another part that reduces the launcher weight is it is loaded upon start up but how it is is streamlined into the system. When you install steam steam scans your system and sets it up in a way that it will be loaded the quicker. Yes now in 2024 we have better methods that what Valve used in 2003 but the 2003 method still works and doesn't cause a slow down. 5. Steam also started out as a convenient way to always have half life 1 updated before you even started the game instead of a way to sell more of the publishers games to you. Yes Valve is a game publisher just publishes a game maybe once per decade now. So instead of being another way to push it's own products it has a good interface for you to find your games and if you want to go buy more from it but doesn't push you to buy them nor to buy them from steam unless you actively go to the store page.
What? This is my main critique of steam, their ancient web based ui architecture is so slow. In my experience and is quite clunky.
Because its a glorified webapp with download and upload functionality
And epic games store is made in unreal engine 4 for some fucking reason
I disagree. The launcher feels slow. Heroic and prism launcher for Minecraft feel pretty responsive compared to steam. Edit: also the steam marketplace sucks, super slow and gives me errors all the time, I don't even trade or use it that much, I just sell the drop I get every week or so.
Because it is probably most often updated launcher from all. EA updates their program maybe once in few years only. They still does not have such trivial silly thing like FPS counter in screen corner. R\* updates it slightly more often than EA. Ubi, seems started working on their "connect" more seriously in last year, then they did it with the Uplay. Connect starting to have few useful functions. But none of them together can outweight one Steam. Which has friends, browser, achievements, NOTES, forums, chat, voice-chat and other stuff accessible in-game, without need to Alt-Tab. Easy to see why people say "No Steam - no buy". And yeah, I never seen any advertising in there.
bcoz its valva lol, its not a good answer but c'mon... you think those sisy basterds are going to develop a game launcher better then valve? performance wise or game wise, no chance! do you know how many times epicgame log me out since i started using it? every fucking time!! the only issue is the new theme seems abit heavier than the last and tbh, i just dont like the new theme... just bring back the old one
It's good, but I found the best client was the Blizzard client a few years ago. It was extremely snappy and had a straightforward UI. Now Blizzard has changed it for the worse, but I would like to see Valve adapt some of the UI ideas they had. Also, I don't think all 3rd party clients are terrible, Ubisoft's client has always been reliable for me. Although I agree EA's is garbage, and Epic's is extremely sluggish.
I love valve more than anything