Epic Games Sucks: How, Why & For How Long?

A history of Epic Games and their ventures in, their self-imposed exile from and their return to "save" PC gaming with their storefront. This guide showcases their hypocrisy on display, their history of disdain towards PC gamers/gamers in general and their shady activities.

Everything That's Wrong with Epic: Part 1

You wanna know what's wrong with Epic and their subpar storefront ? 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

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. Savings are not passed on to consumers over at EGS

■ Steam vs Epic Game Price Comparison

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

■ 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

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

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

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

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 a near decade-long absence, Epic suddenly began preaching a "Pro-PC" message after seeing how successful and just how vast 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

■ Gears of War 2 Designer: Savvy Gamers Know How to Pirate

■ 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.

Everything That's Wrong with Epic: Part 2

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

■ Epic permanently banning player and locking their account for using VPN

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 tech companies in China and are often accused of actively promoting, participating in the politics of and collaborating with the CCP (Communist Party of China) in mass surveillance programs and the censorship of the Chinese internet.

■ China’s Tech Giants Have a Second Job: Helping Beijing Spy on Its People

■ China's WeChat Is a Censorship Juggernaut

■ What Tencent left out when it denied spying on you

Informational Videos on Epic Controversies/Anti-Consumer Practices

The Epic Games "Family"

For those either seeking to avoid Epic or wanting to be aware of exactly how large the Epic "family" is in the future, it is important to note that Epic has amassed a fair amount of subsidiaries over the years - a large number of which were acquired using Epics' Fortnite profits.

The goal of this post is to provide a concise list of and description of each of their notable products and companies. So that people can be aware of what companies are under the Epic banner.

• Epic Games
  Founded 1991, Epic has developed games such as Jazz Jackrabbit, the Unreal Tournament series, the Gears of War series (prior to selling the IP to Microsoft) and more recently, Fortnite and the exclusivity-driven Epic Games Store.
  
  However, Epics flagship product is the Unreal Engine. Epic took a 5% cut of the gross royalty of any game made with their engine that sells above $3000 prior to changing that policy for UE5. Epic is currently based in Cary, NC with regional offices operating in:
  

  • Epic Games Berlin
    
  • Epic Games Cologne
    
  • Epic Games UK (Huddersfield, England)
    
  • Epic Games China (Shanghai)
    
  • Epic Games Korea (Seoul)
    
  • Epic Games Japan (Yokohama)
    
  • Epic Games Montreal
    
  • Epic Games Brasil (from 2023)

  
  
• Kamu (Easy Anti-Cheat))
  Developers of Easy Anti-Cheat (EAC), a widely used anti-cheat software, present in many online games. Purchased by Epic in 2018 and soon put to good use (for Sweeney) cancelling Linux support for games such as Rust and rather conveniently for Epic, ceasing their collaborative efforts with Valve for Proton. Sweeney has been frequently and publicly critical of Linux for a while now, with Epic and its various subsidiaries cancelling the development of LInux-based projects, and helping to end the development of native/Proton-compatible releases for games that have gone EGS-exclusive.
  
  
• Cloudgine
  Based in Edinburgh, Scotland. Cloudgine is notable for developing Crackdown 3 for Xbox One, though it was founded by developers of the GTA-like MMO APB: All Points Bulletin. Purchased by Epic in January 2018 for an undisclosed sum. The reason provided by Epic for their acquisition was to integrate Cloudgines technology into UE4.
  
  
• Psyonix
  Famed developers of Rocket League, Psyonix had a history of collaboration with Epic going back to the development of Unreal Tournament. Bought by Epic in May 2019 and effectively left Steam in September 2020 with the Rocket League Free-to-play update. Made unpopular changes to RL at first, introducing more and more Fortnite-like elements and progression, ended Linux support for the game and mandated an Epic account in order to even play.
  
  
• 3Lateral
  Serbian developer of real-time facial capture technology, purchased by Epic - presumably to make use of its technology in Unreal Engine.
  
  
• Agog Labs
  A scripting tool developer whose technology was utilised during the development of the Square Enix game Sleeping Dogs, Agog was purchased by Epic in January 2019 and its SkookumScript scripting language ceased development, relegated to being a UE4 plugin.
  
  
• Chair Entertainment
  Acquired by Epic in 2008, Chair is known for developing the Infinity Blade series, which gained prominence in recent years due to the Fortnite Season 7s crossover event. Developed the action platformer Shadow Complex for Xbox Live Arcade in 2009, a remastered version was developed by Epic and released across PC, Xbox One and PS4 in 2016.
  
  
• Life on Air Inc. (Houseparty)
  Developers of young teen-oriented social networking app Houseparty, they were acquired by Epic in June 2019.
  
  
• Quixel
  A High resolution image scan library. Purchased by Epic in November 2019 for an undisclosed amount.
  
  
• SuperAwesome
  UK-based startup focusing on "kid-friendly technologies". Purchased September 2020.
  
  
• Hyprsense
  The California-based developer is known for their real time motion capture and animation software/technologies.
  Acquired by Epic in November 2020.
  
  
• RAD Game Tools
  Developer of proprietary video formats and Bink Video, used in thousands of games. Acquired in January 2021.
  
  
• Tonic Media Group
  The parent company of the Irregular Corporation, Fortitude Games and Mediatonic, developers of Fall Guys Ultimate Knockout. Acquired March 2021
  
  
• Capturing Reality
  Developers of photogrammetry technology. Acquired by Epic in March 2021.
  
  
• ArtStation
  Deviantart-like website focused on hosting portfolios relating mainly to art, films and games. Purchased by Epic in April 2021 and instantly adjusted revenue shares to Sweeney-mandated levels.
  
  
• Sketchfab
  3D model/asset repository and sharing platform. Acquired by Epic in July 2021.
  
  
• Harmonix
  Developers of Guitar Hero, Rock Band and other music-oriented games. Acquired by Epic to work on musical events and mechanics for Fortnite and the "Metaverse".
  
  
• Bandcamp (Until 2023)
  Internet music company. Acquired by Epic March 2022. Sold to Songtradr in October 2023.
  
  
• Epic Games Brasil (formerly Aquiris)
  Brazilian game developer, acquired by Epic in April 2023.

Epic Games: For The Developers?

Epic Games is open with their developer first, customer last mantra with their CEO himself stating that what he has dubbed the "store wars" (that he started) will be decided by developers, not consumers. The outright hostility to consumers and criticism of Epic can be presumed as nothing less than a manifestation of Sweeney's own biases and even contempt for PC gamers, considering their statements and self-imposed exile from PC in 2010, before their "return" in late 2018 with EGS.

Epic describes their exclusivity agreements as being with developers, making themselves out to be a benefactor helping the struggling indie dev, while in reality a large part of their exclusives have been published by many publishers, namely 2K (& The Private Division), Ubisoft, Annapurna, Gearbox Publishing and even Activision. Epic has even stepped in to act as a "protector" of sorts for their own puppet developers, dismissing the backlash against Ooblets developer Glumberland and its developers hateful posts and comments towards PC gamers as "harassment", and declared it all misinformation.

Developer good, customer bad. Developers need all the support, particularly financial, as they can get. But do you know the often overlooked story of how Sweeney and Epic management treat their own developers?

Epic Before and After Fortnite

Epic garnered major success for itself after its founding in 1991, with Unreal becoming Epic's flagship product, despite having hits in the Unreal Tournament and Gears of War series. In 2012, Epic partnered with Tencent, who purchased approximately 40% of the company (48.4% of issued share capital). Although Sweeney stated that Tencent had little creative control over the company and its priorities, Epic was among some of the earliest companies to shift towards live services in the years since the (partial) acquisition, in line with Tencents' own shift. Numerous Epic veterans such as Cliff Bleszinski and Rod Ferguson left the company in the months following the Tencent deal.

In 2017, after 6 years of development, Fortnite was released, garnering some success and a modest playerbase engaging with the co-operative game building structures and fending off hordes of zombies. The runaway success of PUBG led to Epic rushing into development and release the Battle Royale mode, which became a free-to-play hit, the highest earning game of 2018 and completely eclipsed PUBG in popularity. The sudden explosion in popularity led to Epic mandating excessive crunch for their employees in order to regularly push out the weekly or monthly conveyor belt of content, such as skins and dances, to the in-game shop.

Employee Treatment

As revealed by Polygon in 2019, numerous Epic employees (current and former at the time) spoke anonymously due to fears of retribution from Epic legal or just from Epic as a company about the 70-100 hour work weeks instituted by management. Both current and former employees of Epic are required to sign Non-Disclosure Agreements (NDAs) which prevent them from discussing the internal workings of Epic in detail.

These anonymous Epic employees cited the emotional and physical distress caused by working such long hours in such conditions, as some employees began to feel that getting a weekend off was "a major achievement", while actually feeling guilty for having time off in the first place. People who allegedly refused to work weekends (presumably as it wasn't in their contract or outside their specified hours) were fired. Employees were fired for missing what were often very strict deadlines.

Another source said: “I’ve had friends come to me and say, ‘I can’t take this anymore.’ I’ve had friends break down in tears. The crunch is constant.”

Employees at Epic came to understand that Epic expected them to crunch as part of their role, even pressuring employees in the following way:

“If I got to the end of an eight-hour workday and I turned to my supervisor to ask if I needed to stay on, they’d often look at me as if I was actively stupid. Officially, you don’t have to keep working, but in reality: ‘Sit back down, we’ll be here for a while.’ If you did not do overtime, that was a mark against your character.”

Employees/contractors were replaced regularly, and eagerly by management according to employees.

“All [management] wanted was people who are disposable,” said a source. “The situation was, ‘Come in and do as many hours as we need you.’ They put the contractors in a situation where if they don’t do that overtime, they know they’re not coming back.

Managerial Attitudes

“One senior guy would say, ‘Just get more bodies.’ That’s what the contractors were called: bodies. And then when we’re done with them, we can just dispose of them. They can be replaced with fresh people who don’t have the toxic nature of being disgruntled.”

"Toxic nature of being disgruntled". Sounds like Epic has the same attitude towards anyone with a complaint or grievance against them: calling them "toxic" and disregarding them.

To just meet the standards of Epic management, employees were expected to work overtime for as long as they deemed necessary and not complain. Employees were expected to sacrifice free time, weekends and general days off to develop content for Fortnite. The rest of Epic was not immune, Quality Assurance (QA) was subject to the whims of Epic managers demanding every second of their employees time to be dedicated to the job, rapidly turning hostile to employees concerned about the workload:

“The managers were very standoffish. When I had some concerns and took them to my manager, I was ignored and [the manager] never spoke to me again. They just didn’t care. When I complained, one of my managers told me to just quiet down, and warned me that I’d be let go. It was a very ‘**** you, I got mine’ mentality ...and management did nothing to discourage this.

All this while Sweeney all but directly proclaims himself as a saviour of developers.
All this as he compares his legal battles against Apple to gain more money and market share for Epic to the civil rights movement, while trampling on his own employees rights to live a life outside of work. Epic and Sweeney's platitudes and praise of the individual game developer couldn't be more insincere if they tried. To the upper echelons of Epic, they have bodies, not developers.

■ Polygon Archive
■ Gamesindustry on the 2012 Investment
■ PC Gamer Archive

The Unreal Hypocrisy of Epic

Most if not all of you will be more than aware at this point; Timmy wants those precious exclusives. He wants ALL games on his store, so he'll moneyhat however many he can to get what he wants.

He (& his defenders) like to even compare their method of exclusivity to Valves' own titles such as Half Life, Portal, Team Fortress and Counter Strike amazingly. They even think it's bad that Valve sell and maintain their own older releases on Steam.

Epic, in a fitting irony, actually had their older games available for sale on Steam, and on GOG until 2022, when they were delisted from these platforms entirely.

It is rather curious that a game like Gears 5, which saw an Xbox/Steam release did not even see an EGS release in addition to those storefronts. While the IP is no longer owned by Epic, it is a series developed in the Unreal Engine, and games made in Unreal and published by Microsoft have seen EGS releases in the past, with State of Decay 2.

Even Fortnite has had elements that have suffered the same fate as Paragon and Unreal Tournament (2014-2018) by being summarily executed quietly cancelled in favour of shifting to the F2P Fortnite model, with the original version of Fortnite, Save The World, effectively abandoned by Epic, with the original paying customers left hanging. The death of STW was covered by none other than Nerdslayer in their "Death of a Game" series.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VpFn-ykZJt8
Long story short, if it isn't either Fortnite BR or the Unreal Engine - and even then Fortnite fans have had their fair share of disappointments - Epic couldn't care less what happens to their products. Even if you are a paying customer or dedicated fan, they will simply shut a game down, abandon it or even just forget about it if it isn't doing well enough for them.

Remember this next time you might want to give Epic Games any money or any of your time.

Thanks for reading.

[𝘯𝘰𝘰𝘯𝘦]

[martianinferno98]

What's ironic is that some of them games I have wishlisted on Steam became free on Epic Games

[I have mic]

There was also several scandals where epic was caught aggressively catering to the regressive left, especially during the 2020 regressive leftist riots where they promoted conspiracy theories about racism via events where they showed regressive leftist propaganda documentaries in fortnite, which resulted in them removing the tomato dispensers because people were throwing it at the screen to mock epic and the far left drivel being shown.

[RealCelticGamer]

Epic want to lock games and gamers to one ecosystem, much like how console manufacturers lock gamers into their ecosystems. Epic may only take 12% but the other 88% doesn't go to devs, it goes to the publishers.

[Something Diabolical!]

Anybody ever wonder where Tim Sweeney gets all his grease? Pretty sure him and Randy Pitchford are doing some kinda slip and slide shit together.

[that's what she said]

"b-b-but 12% cut!"

Yeah, Valve pays regional taxes from their cut and Epic does not, not to mention that the Valve's cut is much lower for popular games. For example Russia has 18% tax on digital transactions that Valve pays from their own cut so the games don't go up in prices on Steam, like they go up on NSO/PSN/Xlive, which means Valve gets 2% from popular games and effectively is losing money on sales in russia). Valve just swallows the tax in order to help those regions. Which is a big point for me, since it forced me to drop consoles completely due to inane price tags that grow constantly. Valve do care about the players, they aren't saying jackshit, but their actions speak better than a thousand twitter posts.

[Mahollo15]

One flaw I must point out.. Epic made Gears of war 1-3 but 4 and 5 were made by
Microsoft. Epic sold the game to Microsoft. a studio called the coalition makes them now owned by Microsoft. Epic has nothing to do with the game now so why would it be on their store.

[Tigerfan51087]

Fortnite always looked fun to me, but not at the risk of supporting a scummy company or terrible launcher; I heard about some of the shady stuff Epic does, didn't know it was this bad; thanks for the guide, very useful!

[Théàlamenthe]

damn thats wack.

epic more like egay

[fϋĵıл 1337]

Fully agreed, fuck Epic. They try to create a monopoly in the PC world, attack Linux, in general throw their weight around, treat their employees like shit, believe that gamers being able to discuss and review the games they own freely is toxic, there's nothing to like about Epic.

Can't wait to see their business go belly up.