re: this article.
The title is a joke. “Free, but you have to make an EGS account” is a bit too rich for me.
Why weren’t you mad when Ratchet & Clank could only be purchased an played on a PlayStation or Final Fantasy was only on a SNES?
Why aren’t people angry that you can’t put diesel in a gasoline engine? Why aren’t you mad that a DVD can’t be played in a VHS? Why aren’t you mad that you can’t plug a computer hard drive into a switch and play Civilization?
Do you understand that there is a difference between “This is only compatible with certain hardware” and “You can only purchase this at one specific business”? Because you are once again arguing as if they are the same thing and I’ve already pointed this out to you, which means you are either completely disingenuous or an idiot. Either way this is a waste of time.
If there’s a third option I’m missing please let me know.
They are the same thing on the business side, absolutely. I mean, games are developed on PC anyway, so those are the same thing today for sure. I promise you there is a PC version of Bloodborne in a FromSoft computer somewhere, even though it’s stuck as a PS4 exclusive. Not because there is some mystery technical reason, but because somebody signed a deal to make it that way.
There has never been a technical reason a port of Ratchet & Clank or Uncharted couldn’t work on a PC (or a GameCube, previously), even when there was more porting work to be done, the game would have sold more than enough to make it worth the porting costs. Those games were stuck on their platforms because Insomniac and Naughty Dog had a business relationship with Sony. And then Sony said it was fine for them to be on Epic, Steam and GoG. And then they decided they wanted to have online authentication DRM, so they were only on Epic and Steam after that point.
Hell, if you go backwards, there was an uproar among Nintendo fanboys when Resident Evil 4 stopped being a Gamecube exclusive and showed up on PS2 (and then on everything else). And that, again, was not a technical issue, but a deal that was in place until it wasn’t. Because this conversation has been dumb both ways for a very long time.
The third option is you don’t understand how games are made or exclusivity deals signed and you’re only latching onto them as a backwards justification for your foregone conclusion because you want to root for Steam as a platform.
Which is the wild part.
The third option is you don’t understand how games are made
Right, the devs just need to change the code from “If_On_PC_Do_Not_Run” from TRUE to FALSE and it will work just fine. And I’m the one that doesn’t understand how games are made.
Looks like option #2 was the correct one.
Dude, no, you really don’t. You’re Dunning-Krugering the crap out of this one.
Look, you don’t need to take my word for it, but I also don’t need to give you my bona fides or give you a TED talk about how platform targets are chosen in most modern games. You can go look it up.
It’s… really not how you’re picturing it. And you’re picturing it that way to justify your chosen platform as a home team. You should really stop doing that and just enjoy the games you want to enjoy wherever you want to enjoy them.