I love the idea of getting older AAA titles for free, but hate the idea of installing the Epic Games Launcher on my computer. Where do you guys stand on this?
It also makes me sad that Epig Games has fallen so far. I grew up on Unreal Tournament and now I don’t want them anywhere near my computer.
I claim the free stuff. I don’t really understand all the hate they get. It’s just another digital software storefront for gaming. It seems to do its job. Click a button, download the game, play the game. I have no reason to be mad at them.
For me, its their utter disdain for Linux, my primary gaming platform. Their client doesn’t support Linux, games that have Linux builds on Steam or GOG don’t on EGS, they refuse to make Fortnite compatible with Proton (Windows compatibility layer) despite saying how easy it is to support Linux with their anticheat, and public statements by the CEO about how they hate Linux.
I also don’t like the exclusivity agreements, even if the initial exclusivity window doesn’t affect me. I bought Rocket League on Steam, and now I can’t play it there anymore (online at least) because they made it EGS exclusive. I could’ve asked for a refund, but I got my value from it and got it in a bundle anyway (was technically “free” with purchase of the Steam controller/Link), but it still rubbed me the wrong way.
Steam actively supports my platform, and GOG makes Linux builds available (and even provides Linux-native packages for old DOS games). Why would I give EGS any of my money? I’ll claim their free games and play on Heroic as long as that works, but I’m not going any further than that.
A big reason people dislike Epic is due to their forced-exclusivity on a lot of games. A popular, highly-anticipated game will only release the PC version on Epic for the first several months, and then it’ll appear on Steam and other platforms, forcing fans to either wait or sign up for a new platform that they didn’t want anything to do with.
And it’s just one more piece of spyware on your computer to serve as a possible vector of attack from hackers.
This is c/patientgamers, so I assume that first reason wouldn’t bother most of us here. I’m curious about the spyware assertion though. Were they caught doing something shady?
iirc it was a bit of a controversy when Epic was newer that they would- without asking- just grab a bunch of information from a Steam install on the same PC. Stuff like your friends list and your play history. They did it by directly looking at local files, too, so it wasn’t even through Steam’s API.
Yeah same. What is this spyware thing you’re taking about? Personally, I think all these connected software soy on you one way or another. I use split tunneling a lot on my VPN and I also have a pihole connected to my router. Anyways, I’m curious to hear why epic is spyware.