I will say it’s the cheapest for value when considering the services offered. Coming from consoles, I have found for years I can almost always get a game on PC for Steam either through Steam or countless other sites ridiculously cheaper than any console, including sales. That alone is nice, and slightly cheaper on lesser launchers does nothing for me.
I’ve even done the math in the last few years comparing prices on PC to sale prices on Playstation and my PC build has essentially been paid for in savings difference. I cannot tell you how many times I’ve bought a game on Steam or maybe Fanatical for like $2.99 when on Playstation it was on SALE for $29.99 and it’s nuts.
As for Steam versus others on PC like Epic, it then becomes about the service. Initially it was nice to have a central launcher, then the free cloud saves. Over the years, the Steam custom controller profiles have become a pricelessly useful feature, and sharing/borrowing others control profiles, and then the Steam Link (physical box) to play across my house and later the Steam Deck have added immense amounts of quality to my gaming experience.
Also on rare occasion Steam Workshop has been nice, and saving my own Notes attached to games, Proton to make old games work, the first Steam game I ever bought was delisted from the store a decade ago and is still in my account and downloadable, central source for news for a game (the updates), the community content for games, ability to refund games, ability to gift games, ability to ignore games in the store, and on and on.
Finally, we’re on the third console gen since I first started my Steam account, and I can still see and play all of my Steam games since the beginning on a PC that is NOT my original PC I started with. Whereas on Playstation I absolutely cannot play my PS3 games on my PS5, and for sure Nintendo wants us to rebuy the same games for another console gen.
All of it adds up and just makes Steam (currently) better for me than all the alternatives and it’s why I have not bought anything on my Playstation for years now and will likely not be buying the next console.
Depends on the day. All these damn platforms are always having some sort of sale. I’m not saying it’s not the cheapest sometimes, but sometimes it’s not.
Unless you’re going to tell me that Itch has a dynamic library filtering setting, family-sharing, the ability to have local machines on the network speed up my downloads, and the ability to dynamically remap controller profiles per-game, then yeah, steam is more user-friendly.
First off, what does Game Jolt even have? Indie games are fun but if the roster is only indie games I’m not gonna find much to play with my friends.
IMO itch.io is not a steam competitor, they are an indie game and game asset hosting platform and seem to be aimed at developers more than players. The search function is alright. But downloading an exe is definitely less user friendly than having a GUI with a play button.
How is Itch user friendly? It literally just gives you a download and lets you figure the rest out yourself. If you have a big library, like if you bought one of those big charity bundles, you can’t even filter or search it in any way.
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Und: Linux. Ende der Diskussion.
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User friendly I would agree. Definitely has the best UX. Not sure I would agree that it’s the cheapest though.
I will say it’s the cheapest for value when considering the services offered. Coming from consoles, I have found for years I can almost always get a game on PC for Steam either through Steam or countless other sites ridiculously cheaper than any console, including sales. That alone is nice, and slightly cheaper on lesser launchers does nothing for me.
I’ve even done the math in the last few years comparing prices on PC to sale prices on Playstation and my PC build has essentially been paid for in savings difference. I cannot tell you how many times I’ve bought a game on Steam or maybe Fanatical for like $2.99 when on Playstation it was on SALE for $29.99 and it’s nuts.
As for Steam versus others on PC like Epic, it then becomes about the service. Initially it was nice to have a central launcher, then the free cloud saves. Over the years, the Steam custom controller profiles have become a pricelessly useful feature, and sharing/borrowing others control profiles, and then the Steam Link (physical box) to play across my house and later the Steam Deck have added immense amounts of quality to my gaming experience.
Also on rare occasion Steam Workshop has been nice, and saving my own Notes attached to games, Proton to make old games work, the first Steam game I ever bought was delisted from the store a decade ago and is still in my account and downloadable, central source for news for a game (the updates), the community content for games, ability to refund games, ability to gift games, ability to ignore games in the store, and on and on.
Finally, we’re on the third console gen since I first started my Steam account, and I can still see and play all of my Steam games since the beginning on a PC that is NOT my original PC I started with. Whereas on Playstation I absolutely cannot play my PS3 games on my PS5, and for sure Nintendo wants us to rebuy the same games for another console gen.
All of it adds up and just makes Steam (currently) better for me than all the alternatives and it’s why I have not bought anything on my Playstation for years now and will likely not be buying the next console.
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What’s cheaper?
Depends on the day. All these damn platforms are always having some sort of sale. I’m not saying it’s not the cheapest sometimes, but sometimes it’s not.
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Unless you’re going to tell me that Itch has a dynamic library filtering setting, family-sharing, the ability to have local machines on the network speed up my downloads, and the ability to dynamically remap controller profiles per-game, then yeah, steam is more user-friendly.
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First off, what does Game Jolt even have? Indie games are fun but if the roster is only indie games I’m not gonna find much to play with my friends.
IMO itch.io is not a steam competitor, they are an indie game and game asset hosting platform and seem to be aimed at developers more than players. The search function is alright. But downloading an exe is definitely less user friendly than having a GUI with a play button.
User friendly would be keeping store and library/launcher separate
Like Epic/GOG/Amazon and Heroic (though I would like another company to come along and add a forum/review module to it)
Way more
How is Itch user friendly? It literally just gives you a download and lets you figure the rest out yourself. If you have a big library, like if you bought one of those big charity bundles, you can’t even filter or search it in any way.
Definitely more user friendly than Itch. Search filters are downright frustrating on Itch.
Never even heard of Game Jolt, so it can’t be that good or useful.