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Epic reduce their cut to 0% for the first $1 million in revenue for devs on the Epic Games Store (www.gamingonlinux.com)

submitted 2 days ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

42 comments fedilink hide all child comments

I mean that's good for developers I suppose but I'm still not going to be buying from Epic.

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[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (2 children)

They're also encumbered with Epic spyware, so despite having collected some of those free games early on, I won't even run them (or the Epic store app) anymore.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 2 days ago (1 children)

You can use Heroic Games Launcher to download and play Epic games. It doesn’t have any kind of online functionality for the games, plus I block them in my firewall so no calls home. Works great for single player games. Usually end up buying it on Steam if I like the game but it’s great to check stuff out without having to deal with the Epic launcher.

Works on Steam Deck too! Also has GoG and Amazon Games support.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

You can use Heroic Games Launcher to download and play Epic games.

I could, but those games contain and execute Epic code. (I checked this by examining the binaries, which is probably against Epic's terms of service, but I don't care if they find out and ban me.) This would still be true even if they were launched with Heroic or some other launcher. After the snooping that Epic code has already been caught doing, I don't trust it to run on my systems.

plus I block them in my firewall so no calls home.

Wise decision.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 day ago

Crack the executables and then block them in your firewall. Though it's mostly just changes in the directories for where the game and its saves are located that differ from Steam or GOG releases.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Can you elaborate on the spyware part? This is new to me

[–] [email protected] 13 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

Probably the most famous example is when their store app was caught copying Steam files, collecting friends play history, and scanning running processes.

https://old.reddit.com/r/fuckepic/comments/wakewr/epic_games_spyware_vs_steam_vs_as_comparision_ea/

https://www.resetera.com/threads/developing-epic-games-launcher-appears-to-collect-your-steam-friends-play-history-up2-valve-responds-see-threadmarks.105385/

https://www.pcgamesn.com/epic-launcher-spyware

Separately, Epic Online Services (which is embedded into many games from the Epic store and some from other stores) collects more information than many people are comfortable with.

And then there's the fact that Tencent owns a sizeable chunk of Epic.

Some folks don't mind these things, but they're not okay with me, so I don't allow software from Epic to run on my systems.