Since Epic started giving weekly free games, i've been grabbing them all. (Had a epic account to use the UE4 toolkit to help a friend).

I already had 2 of the 6 games (Arkam Asylum on 360 & Lego Batman... on GoG) and i might get to playing the other ones later. Both packages are about a $100 value.

Giving away packages at an estimated value of $100 doesn't sound like a store that's doing well. I hope they continue to give away free stuff for people to enjoy until the store goes belly up.

That's the impression I have about their store so far, people dislike it in most ways but they like free stuff.

Edit: Anyone else got a different impression? Are there people who enjoy Epic Store out there? I'm open to the idea that I'm in an echo-chamber on this issue.

My impression is that there's a loud minority online that dislike the Epic store because:
- They suffer from Stockholm syndrome, or
- They like all the social features Steam offers.
--- also, people like jumping on the lynch mob hype train.

Criticising Epic because of 3rd party exclusives but not other stores because their exclusives are "1st party" sounds just illogical and irrational to me. Steam is full of exclusives but why would the reason for that exclusivity be relevant? (the whole Epic is evil and anti-consumer because they offer bags of money to publishers/developers rant.)

The only thing that - I personally - dislike about Epic is that they don't take a stand against DRM. But... so far all their freebies have been DRM free, and the same goes for a lot of their paid games. To me that means that they're better than any other store (except for GOG, of course). *

* I know this can change in the future - but I'm talking about now and not giving an opinion on a possible future or hypothetical situation.
For some reason they even got Warner to remove Denuvo on Arkham Knight.

Oh, and they're not giving away all those free games "because the store is not doing well". They do it because they can (Fortrite piggy bank) and as part of an overall strategy to become a serious Steam competitor.

You haven't done much research. I initially also didn't see what the big deal was. One issue, for example, is swooping in and gaining an exclusive after it had already been promised on other platforms.

I'm personally not going to buy from their store after finding out about that, their backers and the opinions of people like Tim Sweeney.

I like to look on the positive though. They may change over time. That snatching the rug out from under other platforms might change and they might motivate other platforms to do better too. They're also managing to get some formerly console exclusives onto PC which is, imho, awesome. If I do end up breaking my self-imposed rule of not buying from them it will be for Journey which I've heard great things about. Not really interested in the games like Beyond and Almost Human as they appear to be glorified Telltale games with bad stories.

I didn't mention it, because it's not Epic that made that promise.
And also, most often that "other platform" you mention is Steam. Are you saying: Steam=good, other platform=bad? Is this promise important because people want the social features Steam offers? In that case, I already mentioned that.

People like the "free market" when it works their way and hate it when... you know, Epic makes use of it. They're not the mafia making an illegal offer Publishers can't refuse.

The point of all these massive giveaways is to asphyxiate other stores by lowering overall sales for everyone.

When it costs nothing to add 6 lines in a database somewhere i don't see how they are losing money that way, perhaps they give $5,000 (compensation to publishers) to give away a near infinite number of copies in a short giveaway, but there's far fewer users in Epic than Steam, so the short term free game(s) is a strategic way to try and get enough users to get on or use the platform. When it comes a few years later when they have far more users, quite a few of them still don't have those games that have been given away today.

As i mentioned, the ONLY reason i am grabbing free games on Epic's store, is because i had an account anyways (for an unrelated reason). Not sure if i'll use or play any of the games i get from them, as i'll have to see how the platform or launcher does for me and if it's worth it.

What's about their Linux support? I've tried to check some games, but either the games were not available in their store or they did not have a Linux version. Does the Epic downloader even run on Linux?

I do not like Steam and all these store clients in general. I prefer pure games which are not tainted by any proprietary store services. But getting such game versions gets harder and harder, even on GOG. Steam at least has good Linux support, that's their strongest point.

The point is to get eyes on their product, that's always the key marketing value for any business. In this case it's mostly about getting their client on your PC so you start buying their exclusives and eventually buy other stuff there.

No... it's just Epic trying to tempt them to break their promises. I can dislike both the developer for their weakness and Epic for offering the temptation in the first place.

Yeah... Steam is the biggest platform. There are others that lose out too.

No. Not remotely.

The promise is important because people wanted it on the other platform... period. It doesn't matter the reason... features or not.

Yeah... no one is criticizing the 'free market'. They're criticizing Epic for engaging in what they see as unethical practices.

That doesn't make it a 'good' thing.

If you're fine with Epic and their practices, legal as they may be, good for you. Don't try and twist things to make it look like consumers have no valid complaint and are just being those hated scumbags so much of the gaming 'journalists' try and paint them as.

It's more than that. When you give away 40+ games in such a short span of time, on a platform that is already popular (because of Fortnite) and which you are already promoting heavily by buying exclusivity rights to so many of the "hottest new games", there's more to it than just an attempt to get people's attention.

Hmmm... considering thousands of games are added per year to the stores and pool in general, and on average giving away 2 games a week (so 100 games a year let's say) that's a fairly small sample. Also a lot of older games rather than newer ones, so ones that probably already have made the majority of the money and are on the long tail.

These are overall very low risk giveaways when you think about it. Actually any games 3+ years old is a low risk in that way. Heh, if they gave away Skyrim Legendary edition next week, would it matter with how many copies Bethesda sold over the last decade? Could give away ALL of Bethesda's games in a single free bundle and i doubt it would matter much.

I like* their client. It doesn't annoy me with a crapload of features I don't need. It does what it's needed for: downloading and starting games. But I'm aware that I'm not the average gamer, so... maybe I'm the only one who "likes" their client.

The store itself is kinda... "basic". They need to add some filters and a search function (I kknow there is one, but it's too simple for a growing store) in the near future or it'll become a huge mess. I'm not going to scroll through hundreds of games to see if I like something (haven't bought anything there yet, just getting free games if I like them).



*I don't like mandatory clients at all. But I'm not stupid and understand that you barely get any games that don't need a client anymore. Epic's client doesn't annoy me as much as Steam, Origin or Uplay.

Do the games have hard DRM in them?

Because otherwise I could just install the Epic Games Store in a VM, download the games through it and pull the games out to my host PC.

Well, corporations don't usually spent a lot of money because of charity. I (as some other people) have the impression that Epic Games tries suspiciously hard to attract users, which could mean that so far they haven't much success.

As for free games, I don't see why I shouldn't play them, since they are totally free, don't require some credit card verification procedure *cough* Ubisoft free subscription month *cough* or some other shananigans.

Still, I can understand people being angry over exclusivity deals, esecially made for games that were supposed to come on ohter platforms.