I actively avoid it on principle. Same with EA, Ubisoft, and Activision. Buy stuff that aligns with your values and don’t cave just because we need to try the shiny new thing.
A few free games every year isn’t enough to get me to forgo any of that.
“a few free games” it releases a free game every other week basically lol, not that they all are golden eggs but like, that’s a lot of games. I never got the avoid on principle argument, if anything only claiming the freebies is taking more from the company then just pretending it doesn’t exist
Epic pays for the freebies on the expectation that X copies will be redeemed. If more people redeem the game than that, they don’t pay any extra. If less people redeem the game than they paid for, they overpaid (to the benefit of the developer).
I never got the avoid on principle argument
A bullet point summary of why people dislike Epic:
Epic Games’ CEO, Tim Sweeny, is an absolute knob.
He acts out the role of the messiah coming to save PC gamers from the Steam “monopoly”
Epic’s actions demonstrate that he wants to monopolise PC gaming
Epic has a slide deck (released as part of their Apple lawsuit) that outlines their strategy involving paying influencers to “disrupt organic engagement” in their competitors (specifically, Steam).
Epic purchased, gutted, and resold Bandcamp.
Epic, as a company, unethically monitises Fortnite by using dark patterns to trick kids into paying for skins.
Epic has a tendency to pay for timed exclusivity rights of crowdfunded games as a way to force people onto their platform.
Epic support is known to often permanently lock your account when compromised, rather than help get it back.
Tencent is a significant shareholder of Epic. (For those that care)
The “avoiding them out of principle” argument comes from people refusing to be a statistic that benefits the company.
The irony of criticizing epic for wanting to monopolize PC gaming when steam already did that, and did it intentionally from the very beginning as well
I can’t speak for others, but my problem with them isn’t that they want to monopolise PC gaming. It’s the blatant hypocrisy of trying to paint itself as being good for PC gaming while doing so.
A few free games as in games I actually want to play. Claiming freebies makes you access their eco system which makes you a customer whether you spend money or not.
I actively avoid it on principle. Same with EA, Ubisoft, and Activision. Buy stuff that aligns with your values and don’t cave just because we need to try the shiny new thing.
A few free games every year isn’t enough to get me to forgo any of that.
“a few free games” it releases a free game every other week basically lol, not that they all are golden eggs but like, that’s a lot of games. I never got the avoid on principle argument, if anything only claiming the freebies is taking more from the company then just pretending it doesn’t exist
Epic pays for the freebies on the expectation that X copies will be redeemed. If more people redeem the game than that, they don’t pay any extra. If less people redeem the game than they paid for, they overpaid (to the benefit of the developer).
A bullet point summary of why people dislike Epic:
The “avoiding them out of principle” argument comes from people refusing to be a statistic that benefits the company.
The irony of criticizing epic for wanting to monopolize PC gaming when steam already did that, and did it intentionally from the very beginning as well
I can’t speak for others, but my problem with them isn’t that they want to monopolise PC gaming. It’s the blatant hypocrisy of trying to paint itself as being good for PC gaming while doing so.
A few free games as in games I actually want to play. Claiming freebies makes you access their eco system which makes you a customer whether you spend money or not.
That’s a lot of games I can’t play based on what you’ve said.
Yeah and if you don’t have similar principals to mine it’ll continue to feel like a sacrifice that may or may not be worth pursuing.
Truthfully I don’t feel like I’m missing out at all. Those developers have been pumping out trash for years.
Helping steam keep its monopoly isn’t much of a principle.
But I like proton… (I know I can use proton for non steam games)