Top 6 Platforms for PC Gaming

 When it to PC Gaming, it's important to know where you're getting your games. If you're spending a huge sum of money on a computer, it's probably best that you have some dollars to spare to purchase some games. Otherwise, you'll have easily the most expensive computer to primarily use Google on. Most gaming services do offer plenty of deals and I will be going over my top five personal recommendations when it comes to gaming services.

1. Steam

Steam is somewhat of the creator of having an online platform when it comes to accessing games online. Created by Valve to sell their game Half-Life, it exploded in popularity due to not only Valve's award-winning games but also the number of games that were present in their store. The games on the store aren't limited to games made by Valve but also include tons from AAA Studios to independent developers. They also have a great selection of free-to-play games. Their community tab is also an amazing way to make friends there allowing you to join groups relating to games you enjoy. They also have a workshop that allows people around the world to create mods for the games they enjoy. For some reason as well, they also have a marketplace where you could train cosmetic items, posters, and stickers relating to any of your games. There's a news tab that allows you to get informed on the games and their updates on fixing or releasing the games. Steam is also well known for its steam sales which are usually 2 week-long deals on tons of games, meaning that more games get to be played by more people. This is defiantly essential when it comes to pc gaming.

2. Epic Games Launcher

The Epic Games Launcher is a rising competitor to Steam. This service was created by Epic Games to host their world-famous battle royale, Fortnite. With that being said they offer a unique selection of games that whether it's a game from an AAA studio that was released on their platform earlier than Steam or a game that is connected to Epic Games. While they do offer sales on games, one of the things that stand out from their competitors is that they offer a free game or free bundle of games once a week. I'm not even talking about games that some random small company has made, I'm talking about games made by AAA studios that are high quality. However, one complaint that I do have for Epic games is the lack of community involvement with their platform as well since it seems to be nonexistent. Not to mention the lack of must-have titles since the only ones that come to mind is Fortnite. They've also claimed Rocket league which is basically NASCAR meets soccer. However, it's been on Steam longer than it has been an exclusive on the Epic Store. Overall this is still a good service to use for gaming but has some notable flaws when compared to Steam.

3. Origins

Origins are the EA's platform to sell their games on. Most of them if not all the games are owned by EA. Now they do have some good titles such as the Battlefield series, Sims, and almost all the sports games in existence. They also offer plenty of good deals. However, this is more or less just a hub for their games since there really aren't any community factors or even any news posts relating to their games. However, they sparingly made a deal with Steam to allow for cross-platform interactions, meaning you can purchase games on steam to play on the origin and vice versa which is a pretty solid move in order to compete against Epic Games.

4. Battle.net

Battle.net is the platform created by Activision Blizzard to host their games on there. Originally this was primarily used for Blizzard's selection of games such as Hearthstone, Diablo, Starcraft, and easily the most popular MMO of all time; World of Warcraft. Recently there has been a slight change to the selection of games as Activision has moved over to their service to promote the newer Call of Duty releases. They've also as of now posted Crash Bandicoot on their store page. While all of the games I've mentioned have tons of replayability, there really isn't a wide selection of companies offering their games. Then again, they probably don't need it.

5. GOG.com

GOG is a bit of an oddball here as they really only offer single-player games. However, this doesn't stop them from having a diverse selection of games with almost every genre and type of developer. They also offer plenty of great deals on games too. This is as of now, they have been looking at ways to encompass a system like Steam where it's a downloadable app in the form of GOG Galaxy. This is more a way to organize your games really as it provides an easy access hub to play any games from the previously mentioned platforms. There really isn't a way to purchase any multiplayer game without using the popular platforms on PC but this might be a step in the right direction. Hopefully, this will result in multiplayer games being owned by GOG.

6. G2A.com

Another oddball like GOG, however, is defiantly the GameStop of pc gaming. Here you can find tons of games with amazing deals 24/7. This even sometimes beats the offers on Steam and Epic Games as this is more or less a community effort to provide serial keys for games at a low cost. Speaking of Steam, you still will need a Steam account to access it as the majority of the keys they provide correlate to games available on Steam. They also offer a monthly subscription of G2A plus which provides free games, and even more discounts. However, this site is more or less the ultimate Steam Sales rather than a reliant platform for games. This site is still a good platform though if you feel like any of the platforms are overcharging a game since you can easily find it cheaper here most of the time.A.com

PC Pete

Source from the original article: https://discover.hubpages.com/games-hobbies/Steam-alternatives

Author: Samuel Franklin