Demystifying the "Epic account requirement"

[Jake]

Before you even bother reading any of this post: If you simply hate Epic with a passion and can't stand anything even remotely connected to them, this isn't going to change your mind, don't waste your time reading it. I respect your opinion, but don't bother commenting to tell me whether or not you still plan to buy the game because I don't care.

This post is a long read for those with functioning attention spans who want to be actually informed instead of just reading rage threads from people who probably don't know what they're talking about. If you're unable to read something for 5 minutes without Subway surfers and Family Guy compilations to stimulate you, don't comment to tell me you didn't read it, because I still don't care.

The goal of this post is to give you accurate and unbiased, non-sensationalised information for you to reach your own conclusion. I'm not an Epic fanboy, I think their storefront sucks and so does their company.

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Anyway. Just so we are all on the same page, this is written verbatim from the "Playing Online" popup:

Playing Online

This title uses Epic Account Services Basic Profile to connect players across platforms.

By pressing "Continue with Epic Games", you accept Epic Account Services Terms & Conditions.
The title will then verify whether your platform account is already linked with an Epic Account Services account. If not, the title will create an empty Epic account on your behalf and link it to your Platform account.

You can read more info on Epic Account Services and its Terms & Conditions by pressing "More Info".

Basic Profile access enables the application to authenticate the user with Epic Online Services, access information like the user's screen name, and make in-application purchases.
However, the application will never have access to the user's password or payment information.

Finally, you could refuse and enjoy the game solo - it's still an amazing experience! And if you change your mind, you can come back to this screen by going to Settings > Legal > Epic Account Services.

So, with the full message for context I'd like to clarify or otherwise emphasise a few points:

By pressing "Continue with Epic Games", you accept Epic Account Services Terms & Conditions.

This is, honestly, the only part I can maybe see some users being upset about. You have to accept a third-party EULA for the vast majority of games on Steam so this is by far nothing out of the ordinary. However if you truly hate Epic that much then yeah, this means you cannot play online without agreeing to their EULA, which is fair if you don't like that, no shade to you.

The title will then verify whether your platform account is already linked with an Epic Account Services account. If not, the title will create an empty Epic account on your behalf and link it to your Platform account.

This is the part most people are glossing over when they hear "Epic account" and all the blood rushes to their head and they stop thinking rationally.

For the purposes of this discussion there are three relevant services that Epic Games offers: EGS (Epic Games Store), EOS (Epic Online Services), and EAS (Epic Account Services).

EGS is what the vast majority of you (rightfully) dislike; it's their inferior store that offers you random games for free in a desperate bid to convince you to use their store over Steam. This is NOT what you are agreeing to use when playing Dragonwilds.

EOS is their service that they offer to all game devs on any platform and any game engine that, to simplify, facilitates people playing together on different platforms and storefronts (cross-platform play) among other things. Any older gamers reading this have probably played a game that used GameSpy arcade to manage its servers (games like Unreal Tournament, older Battlefield titles, the first Borderlands, S.T.A.L.K.E.R., Command and Conquer, etc etc) - this is the exact same thing, it's just Epic's take on it.
I cannot stress enough that it is not related to the Epic Games Store - Dragonwilds isn't even listed on EGS currently. Steam has its own version: Steamworks, however it is very old and outdated and isn't really used outside of Source games. Reading more into this I believe I am mistaken about Steamworks being old/outdated and only used in Source games so I'll retract this. I don't know if Steamworks facilitates cross-platform play, however.

EAS is simply an element of EOS that, simply put, is just an account that you use with EOS that lets you do things like have access to achievements, friends and cross-progression regardless of which platform you're on.

I'll say it again: you do not need to make an account on the Epic Games Store to play online in Dragonswild. Anyone suggesting otherwise is misinformed and regurgitating incorrect information they do not understand.

To put it into an analogy, it would be like refusing to own a Sony TV because you don't like Playstations, or refusing to own a Yamaha piano because you think Yamaha motorbikes suck. If you hate the company in and of itself, sure, but they are two entirely separate products.

Returning our attention back to the quoted text, note that you do not need to make an account yourself; most games that use EOS don't make you login to an extra account. So that means no, you won't need to launch the game through another launcher, and no, you don't need to login to another account when you boot the game up. There aren't any annoying added steps.

Basic Profile access enables the application to authenticate the user with Epic Online Services, access information like the user's screen name, and make in-application purchases.
However, the application will never have access to the user's password or payment information.

This is basically telling you the entire scope of what EAS/EOS can do; it authenticates you (for example if you try to join a server it lets the server know if you're on its blocklist or not), gives basic information like your display name and picture on Steam (for things like the friends list), and facilitates any in-app purchases (which Dragonswild currently does not have, so meh).
This is important because one argument against third party accounts is if they suffer a data breach, your Steam account might be affected. However as you can see, EAS/EOS does not have access to any sensitive information of that nature.

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So, in summary:
No, you don't need to use the Epic Games Store to play the game. (You can't use the Epic Games Store.)
No, you don't need an Epic Games Store account to play the game.
No, you don't need to login to an extra account to play the game. If you don't already have an EAS account the game makes a completely blank one automatically and uses it.
Many games use EOS that aren't even on the Epic Games Store.
Epic Online Services/Epic Account Services are not the same thing as the Epic Games Store.
Steam Discussions are a cesspit of jester farming and ragebaiting so I have no idea why I'm bothering to try reasoning with the rabid masses but hey ho, here we are.

[Dragon]

I don't really understand all the hate on Epic, anyways. I feel like people fanboy way too fast, and decide to hate everything that isn't the thing they are a fan of.

It's just another store, right? If you like the other store more, just shop there instead.

[Ｔｅｎｓｅｎｕｍａ]

people see epic and they see red but from a developer standpoint it makes a lot of sense lol
devs want to use epic's online services because it's a seemless plugin and makes for potential crossplay and everything else last I knew
they're just uneducated and hate Anything to do with epic when it doesn't even make an account
be thankful the game is even on steam like what

[Jake]

Originally posted by Dragon:

I don't really understand all the hate on Epic, anyways. I feel like people fanboy way too fast, and decide to hate everything that isn't the thing they are a fan of.

It's just another store, right? If you like the other store more, just shop there instead.

I mean yeah, their store is subjectively inferior, but I also generally dislike Epic Games as a company, and particularly disagree with Tim Sweeney's stance on generative AI in gaming.

[Jake]

Originally posted by Ｔｅｎｓｅｎｕｍａ:

people see epic and they see red but from a developer standpoint it makes a lot of sense lol
devs want to use epic's online services because it's a seemless plugin and makes for potential crossplay and everything else last I knew
they're just uneducated and hate Anything to do with epic when it doesn't even make an account
be thankful the game is even on steam like what

What gets me is that Dragonwilds isn't even on EGS, you couldn't use the Epic Games Launcher to play Dragonwilds if you tried

[Ｔｅｎｓｅｎｕｍａ]

Originally posted by Shippu:

Originally posted by Ｔｅｎｓｅｎｕｍａ:

people see epic and they see red but from a developer standpoint it makes a lot of sense lol
devs want to use epic's online services because it's a seemless plugin and makes for potential crossplay and everything else last I knew
they're just uneducated and hate Anything to do with epic when it doesn't even make an account
be thankful the game is even on steam like what

What gets me is that Dragonwilds isn't even on EGS, you couldn't use the Epic Games Launcher to play Dragonwilds if you tried

yet
why wouldn't someone put it in the game as early as possible to open up that window later on lol
this makes it so they could put the game Anywhere even their launcher or windows and have seemless crossplay
it makes sense

[myotherstuff]

Thank-you so much for this post, it answered all the questions I had and now I can enjoy playing the new Runescape.

[ArgentumRattus]

thanks for this explanation..when i saw that epic was attached i was like...nope but since you've explained things quite nicely I'll give it a shot if hubby is on board

if they had required login with steam AND epic that would have def been a no-go

[Xianyu]

Originally posted by Dragon:

I don't really understand all the hate on Epic, anyways. I feel like people fanboy way too fast, and decide to hate everything that isn't the thing they are a fan of.

It's just another store, right? If you like the other store more, just shop there instead.

The paid developers not to publish their games on steam. Some of said games (mechwarrior 5, Pheonix Rising, Shenmue, etc) were crowdfunded games with the specific reward being 'steam keys' which were then changed to the epic store keys. I'm stunned none of them got a class-action lawsuit for that ♥♥♥♥.

I, and other people, don't tolerate companies that bribe publishers to give users worse experiences. It's exactly the same as a movie theatre paying Disney a hundred million dollars so that only THEIR theatre chain gets to show Endgame. It's scum, pure and simple. I wouldn't go to that theatre on the raw principle of the matter and I wouldn't go that game company on the same principle.

[donut32]

Originally posted by Dragon:

I don't really understand all the hate on Epic, anyways. I feel like people fanboy way too fast, and decide to hate everything that isn't the thing they are a fan of.

It's just another store, right? If you like the other store more, just shop there instead.

because its just more bloatware that we dont want on our PCs. more databases storing our PII. in the past 15 years everyone now has their own launcher, their own streaming, their own this, that whatever, that all requires email passwords etc that can be hacked and leaked.

more garbage and junk that we dont want to deal with.

[Druark]

Whilst it doesn't require another account or their store. The reality is that the people complaining don't want to host on external servers, we want servers that *we* control. Locally or paid for via a hosting service. Not yet another cloud platform we have no ability to configure. Especially when EOS is notorious for poor performance too.

[Jake]

Originally posted by Druark:

Whilst it doesn't require another account or their store. The reality is that the people complaining don't want to host on external servers, we want servers that *we* control. Locally or paid for via a hosting service. Not yet another cloud platform we have no ability to configure. Especially when EOS is notorious for poor performance too.

Whilst I entirely agree that we should have the tools to host our own servers (and dedicated servers are coming soon), it is insane to imply that the vast majority of people complaining about "Epic accounts" are just unhappy with the history of reliability of their servers as opposed to incorrectly thinking that they're being required to sign up for the Epic Games Store and/or use the Epic Games launcher to play the game.

Open literally any thread with "Epic" in the title and you will see people saying they won't buy the game because they "don't want to make an epic account" or "i bought the game on steam I should be able to play it on steam" or something like that.

[Druark]

Originally posted by Shippu:

Originally posted by Druark:

Whilst it doesn't require another account or their store. The reality is that the people complaining don't want to host on external servers, we want servers that *we* control. Locally or paid for via a hosting service. Not yet another cloud platform we have no ability to configure. Especially when EOS is notorious for poor performance too.

Whilst I entirely agree that we should have the tools to host our own servers (and dedicated servers are coming soon), it is insane to imply that the vast majority of people complaining about "Epic accounts" are just unhappy with the history of reliability of their servers as opposed to incorrectly thinking that they're being required to sign up for the Epic Games Store and/or use the Epic Games launcher to play the game.

Open literally any thread with "Epic" in the title and you will see people saying they won't buy the game because they "don't want to make an epic account" or "i bought the game on steam I should be able to play it on steam" or something like that.

I didn't say they're "just unhappy with the history of reliability of their servers". I pointed out that it is another issue on top of the others.

The reality is that many of the people with seemingly anti-epic sentiments have good reason for it. They tried to effectively bribe their way in to the market with an inferior product because they had Fortnite money. Years later now, they could've spent time improving, instead they still haven't and rely solely on their existing products to draw in users rather than making a better store with community features to compete with Steam. People dislike them for good reason.

[Jake]

Originally posted by Druark:

Originally posted by Shippu:

Whilst I entirely agree that we should have the tools to host our own servers (and dedicated servers are coming soon), it is insane to imply that the vast majority of people complaining about "Epic accounts" are just unhappy with the history of reliability of their servers as opposed to incorrectly thinking that they're being required to sign up for the Epic Games Store and/or use the Epic Games launcher to play the game.

Open literally any thread with "Epic" in the title and you will see people saying they won't buy the game because they "don't want to make an epic account" or "i bought the game on steam I should be able to play it on steam" or something like that.

I didn't say they're "just unhappy with the history of reliability of their servers". I pointed out that it is another issue on top of the others.

The reality is that many of the people with seemingly anti-epic sentiments have good reason for it. They tried to effectively bribe their way in to the market with an inferior product because they had Fortnite money. Years later now, they could've spent time improving, instead they still haven't and rely solely on their existing products to draw in users rather than making a better store with community features to compete with Steam. People dislike them for good reason.

To be clear from the get-go, I am one of those people who do not like them. Not necessarily because of their servers but for various other reasons.

What I was referring to was this part of your comment:

Originally posted by Druark:

The reality is that the people complaining don't want to host on external servers, we want servers that *we* control. [...] Especially when EOS is notorious for poor performance too.

Which, to me, sounds like it's implying that the issue you're referring to (the poor performance of EOS) is more prevalent than the issue I was addressing (the notion that you'd have to login to the Epic Games Store or use their launcher to play the game).
But for the reasons I pointed out (People specifically say they don't want to "use another launcher", or "make an account"), it's a reasonable assumption to make that a majority of people complaining are doing so because they erroneously think they need to make an Epic Games Store account/use their third party launcher. Neither of those things are true which is why I made this thread to help dispel that notion (though admittedly to very little avail as people simply don't like to read/don't like to accept new information that conflicts with their internalised worldview and prefer to be angry).
If you are saying that you are not making that implication however, I have no reason to doubt you and we can simply chalk it up to a breakdown of communication, rather than a conflict of opinion.

I have no doubts there are plenty of people who understand the difference between the two issues and are in fact complaining about EOS reliability and I'm sure it's an entirely valid complaint that I make no attempts to argue for or against (purely because I do not have any knowledge about the subject), however it's not necessarily related to the issue I am addressing. Both of these reasons can exist, but only one of them I know to be factually untrue, which is why I made this post about it.

I also understand that there are people who simply dislike Epic in general to the point that just their name associated with the product is enough to deter them, but I feel like I made it pretty clear that I am not trying to change anyone's mind about Epic as a company (I mentioned this fact two separate times in my initial post), I am simply providing a correction to a very widespread misconception for those who aren't immediately turned away by Epic's involvement, but are rather disgruntled about the idea of needing to make extra accounts/use another launcher to play the game.