Everything That's Wrong with Epic

[[deleted]]

You wanna know what's wrong with Epic and their shitty store ? Well here's everything that's wrong with them. Incoming wall of text.

TL:DR version : Main issue being the forced exclusive deals and robbing us customers the options to choose to buy from other stores. Epic is also trying to create monopoly on PC by restricting / preventing other official stores from competing and selling those games on their stores and any third party sites related to those stores, which paves way for prices manipulation. They're also implementing all kinds of anti-consumer policies on their stores and imposing them on customers.

■ Steam vs Epic Third Party Sites Price Comparison [imgur.com]

■ And here's another one [pbs.twimg.com]

Epic's talk about their lower cut equating to lower prices of games in their stores is also a lie. The following chart shows the price comparison of games between Steam and Epic. Notice how some games are even cheaper on Steam than Epic. The rest are the same.

■ Steam vs Epic Game Price Comparison [imgur.com]

And here's another case where customers couldn't buy games from third party sites at lower price point due to Epic's monopoly with third party exclusives

■ Price of Anno 1800/The Division 2 on PC went up 10% on average (around 30% compared to lowest recorded price) after ES/UPlay exclusivity

Epic lacks many many features of other storefronts / launchers, chiefly Steam. The following chart is just an example of the amount of features that Steam provides and what Epic lacks.

■ A comprehensive list of Steam features and services [imgur.com]


Epic's storefront does not feature a forum and have said they would not allow forum in their store due to "toxicity". In an interview with Kotaku, Epic's director of publishing strategy Sergey Galyonkin, the creator of SteamSpy has said the following

■ Epic Store's lack of forum feature [imgur.com]

Due to Epic store's lack of forum, customers are unable to discuss, troubleshoot, share game guides or general thoughts and ideas of games on that store. What's more, those who bought games on Epic store who faced issues of their games had to come to Steam forum for assistance

■ Lack of Epic Games Store Forums Force Subnautica Players to Turn to Steam [www.gamerevolution.com]

Epic also lacks review system with its CEO Tim Sweeney stating the store will have an "opt-in" review system where developers and publishers can have full control over user reviews

■ There's an opt-in review system in the works for the Epic Games Store [www.gamasutra.com]

Epic have a general disdain for PC gamers for a long time. In the past, both their former president, one of its chief developer and the current CEO of Epic had blatantly stated that PC gamers are pirates / piracy is to blame for their lost games sale. That they would never support PC gaming / gamers and would only make support / make games on consoles because that's where the money is at. And yet, after 10+ years of absence, Epic is now suddenly preaching "Pro-PC" only after seeing how successful the PC game industry really is with vast contribution going towards Valve through their 15+ years of hard work, contradicting their earlier statement.

■ Epic Games former President Mike Capps says PC gamers are pirates [imgur.com]

■ Gears of War 2 Designer: Savvy Gamers Know How to Pirate [www.tomshardware.co.uk]

■ Is this the same Epic "PC gamers are pirates" Games?

■ Unreal Creator: 'Consoles Have Left PC Games Behind'.

■ Director of Publishing Strategy for Epic Games Store agrees that ”gamers are unpleasant aggressive a**holes with hysteric requirements who should f**k off”.

■ It's not that Tim Sweeney does not understand your concerns. He simply doesn't care.

In comparison, here's what Valve' CEO Gabe Newell said about piracy

■ Gabe Says Piracy Isn't About Price

Epic's game launcher is always online and cannot be played offline. Epic's refund system is limited and convoluted, not as streamlined as Steam's or the general game industry's refund standards. There also have been cases where Epic denied refunds for customers who perfectly meets their requirement / criteria for refunding games.

■ So my internet is down and I wanted to play metro exodus but because its from the epic games launcher I need internet to use it. An offline single player game now requires internet.

■ Epic's "no questions asked" refund policy requires players to "verify ownership of the account"

■ My experience with Epic Games

■ Do not buy through Epic! Incredible anti-consumer tactics to avoid refunds

■ Epic Games store doesn't want to give me my money back for my refund request on a game call Ashen

■ Joker Productions commenting on Epic Store's refund experience

If you are banned in one game using Epic's game launcher, you will lose access to your account and be unable to play all of your games purchased from there.

■ Epic Games compensating wrongfully banned Fortnite players amid Ninja controversy [www.dexerto.com]

■ Epic permanently banning player and locking their account for using VPN [www.epicgames.com]


Epic is partially owned by Tencent, a Chinese company who among other things, makes free-to-play mobile game with microtransactions, who're notorious for copy pasting other people's works and claiming it as their own with its CEO going on record to say "To copy is not evil". They are one of the biggest internet provider in China and they actively promote, participate and collaborate with CCP (Communist Party of China) in mass censorship of the Chinese people

■ China’s Tech Giants Have a Second Job: Helping Beijing Spy on Its People [www.wsj.com]

■ China's WeChat Is a Censorship Juggernaut [fortune.com]

■ What Tencent left out when it denied spying on you over WeChat [qz.com]

■ Tencent imposes new regulations on streamers in China

Tencent already own 40 percent of Epic and 48 percent of Epic's total shares including employees shares. Their negative influence on Epic is already showing as their store do not allow forums on their store and reviewing being "opt-in", in an attempt to silence critics. With Epic trying to create a monopoly on the PC game industry with its forced third party exclusives, more anti-consumer practices could be introduced if its not in check.

■ Tencent's $330M Epic Games investment absorbed 40 percent of developer [www.polygon.com]

■ Chinese internet company Tencent owns 40 percent of Epic Games

■ To the people who believe that Epic Games is autonomous and not influenced by Tencent


Not too long ago, 80 million Fortnite accounts were compromised and were vulnerable to hackers having potential user account, personal information, credit card information etc that they could exploit. Also, creating and closing a new account on Epic store is also risky, cumbersome and susceptible to hacking attempts as some users have painfully found out.

■ Fortnite had a security vulnerability that let hackers take over accounts [www.cnet.com]

■ A customer was hacked while opening a new account on Epic Store

■ Someone hacked into my epic games. Lost thousands, need help.

■ Epic Store Account Gets Hacked, Loses Thousands Of Euros [segmentnext.com]

■ Fortnite accounts are being hacked to make fraudulent purchases [www.hackread.com]

■ Epic games store keep using the same 2FA token after you've logged in making it a lot easier for people to hack your account.

■ PSA: Some Epic account details have been leaked as plain text email and passwords

■ Cyber attacks are making phony Epic Games accounts with other people’s emails

■ Hackers trying to hack into Epic accounts repeatedly on a daily / weekly basis [media.discordapp.net]

There's also claims that Epic sells user information to the Chinese government. This is an excerpt from Epic's TOS where it states how they can use our information and exploit / sell it to unknown parties local and overseas.

■ Epic Store's EULA / User content exploitation [imgur.com]

■ Epic Games Store could be sending your data to China [mainmenu.games]

There's also reports that Epic spies on PC users using their store collecting various information without user consent

■ PC gamers report that Epic launcher collects their Steam friends & play history, Epic Games responds [www.dsogaming.com]

■ Epic Game Store, Spyware, Tracking, and You!

■ Epic Games Launcher appears to collect your steam friends & play history

Epic does not comply with the GDPR laws set by the EU and have seemingly broken a few. More details on that below

■ The Epic Games Store does not seem to comply with the GDPR laws

■ Epic “Don’t Make Money” from Fortnite or it’s “Necessary to Comply with Data Regulations and Laws” [wccftech.com]

■ MPs in a spin as games chief appears to deny Fortnite makes money [www.theguardian.com]

Epic's CEO, Tim Sweeney is a hypocrite two years ago went on record to virulently oppose Microsoft for their attempts at locking down the PC platform with exclusivity using their Windows 10 UWP app store. Two years later, he is taking similar approach with Epic game store, locking down and taking games hostage via exclusivity deals.

■ The Epic Games Hall of Shame

■ Tim Sweeney on Microsoft's "evil plan" [soundcloud.com]

■ Microsoft wants to monopolise games development on PC. We must fight it [www.theguardian.com]

■ Epic CEO Tim Sweeney pummels Microsoft's UWP initiative

■ Tim Sweeney of Epic Games on Microsoft's closed ecosystem initiative (UWP) [imgur.com]

He recently tweeted his earlier statement of consumer choice and free competition while doing the exact opposite. Here's his recent post on Twitter

■ https://twitter.com/TimSweeneyEpic/status/1090528919336280066

In this tweet, Tim Sweeney showing he clearly does not care about consumer choice

■ https://twitter.com/TimSweeneyEpic/status/1150542563390238721

He also stated that Epic intents to compete by creating "store wars" and forced third party exclusives on their store instead of improving their stores with better features and services to appeal to customers

■ Tim Sweeney's definition of "competition" [imgur.com]

■ Tim Sweeney: Storefront battle will be won with developer support [www.gamesindustry.biz]

Epic has bad regional pricing compared to Steam in a lot of the countries. On top of that, on Epic store, you'd have to pay extra tax on payment, something that Steam themselves absorbs. Epic's CEO Tim Sweeny has admitted that their 12 percent revenue cut is not enough to cover those extra charges. And since Epic has a monopoly of exclusive games on their store, either timed or permanent, customers are unable to buy those games from competing storefronts like Steam, GOG or from their third party sites for cheaper prices.

■ Metro Exodus Regional Pricing Steam and Epic Games Comparison

■ Price keeps going up!

■ Tim Sweeney of Epic Games admits to an international surcharge to offset their low 12% revenue cut [imgur.com]

These are some of the main issues surrounding Epic and its store so far. If you'd like to know for, please feed free to read / watch through other users, developers and reputable Youtube content creators who also shared the same concern. It should give you a greater insight into this whole thing.

■ "No Steam, no buy", the idea behind it [www.resetera.com]

■ An Indie developer's take on Steam vs Epic [www.resetera.com]

■ The Epic Store, In Its Current State, is Not Good for Anyone [www.gamasutra.com]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bNNcykRtQoA

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YsgcwpZLUhg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lcWVWbfLqno

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yCbLTtizaBs

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_xl2hPQX7ls

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QacBMgEQGEQ

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qrn_7DPKO5A

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gvxBQ7_7TUc

[MADWACZ]

That was a interesting post, can I use the reference? I am going to make a blog about it in my own language.

[MADWACZ]

Początkowo opublikowane przez Elias Chikane:

Początkowo opublikowane przez MADWACZ:

That was a interesting post, can I use the reference? I am going to make a blog about it in my own language.

Sure thing. You can use anything and everything in this post to your heart's content. Heck, you can even copy paste the entire post if you so like. The whole reason for creating this post is to raise awareness to everyone for how greedy and anti-consumer Epic really is and how they're on their way to ruin the PC gaming industry.

Thanks

[𝙸𝚁𝚄𝙻𝙰𝙽]

Thanks for that.
#team_steam

[Trundle]

They can keep 88% of my 0$.

[ShadowGamer101st]

Lol Deep Silver can't delete this thread!

[Trundle]

Well it just works

[Valorghost]

I would like to see an update to this. Maybe in the statistical sense?

[GRIMREAPER ALVA]

More scummy anti-consumer business practices from Epic

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AoAwyyDTiJ4

[Chevy]

Pin this thread please!

[GRIMREAPER ALVA]

Another Epic wall of shame courtesy of -3xA'Lu©κy

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1766018964

[GRIMREAPER ALVA]

More Epic fali

https://wccftech.com/epic-dont-believe-in-complying-with-data-regulations-and-laws/

https://www.theguardian.com/games/2019/jun/19/mps-in-a-spin-as-games-chief-appears-to-deny-fortnite-makes-money

[[Daos]BLACK KNIGHT]

riggght... I love how every greedy human is not responsable for anything bad and everything he does is only for the good of man kind.

[Func_Ladder]

They should force kids to read this.

[GRIMREAPER ALVA]

And another one...and another one

https://www.reddit.com/r/fuckepic/comments/ckd7st/my_account_was_hacked_and_i_couldnt_verify_it/

https://www.reddit.com/r/fuckepic/comments/cl02bo/brother_got_his_bank_account_suspended_for_using/

https://www.polygon.com/2019/8/9/20799032/epic-games-fortnite-lawsuit-security-data

https://www.reddit.com/r/fuckepic/comments/cpnc13/epic_account_leak/

[Thesda]

Excellent, with examples and everything ... there is nothing more to say. The truth is that I don't like Epic's politics at all. So complicated is selling titles on all possible platforms? Lastly, prices vary, but the user has the freedom to choose where to play it. In my case, I like to have everything in one place.