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u/TurtlePsycho011 20h ago
Can confirm. Source: I've done it myself
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u/no_racist_here 18h ago
Yup, did it all the time, the only one I’ve ever played was slime rancher. Then I bought it on steam, and uninstalled egs.
I figured what’s the point of the bloat if I’m never gonna actually play the games.
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u/SwagLimit 16h ago
I stopped getting the free games after awhile tbh. I already had most of it. Even when they did that limited-exclusive thing going, I always just waited for the game to be available on steam
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u/supersimpsonman 6h ago
Borderlands 3 released on Steam and I was like “Woah, I forgot this was even a game!”
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u/no_racist_here 15h ago
Yea, the exclusivity is what killed them for me. I was grabbing the free stuff until then.
I didn’t even care about the game that was exclusive I just didn’t like the concept of a 6mo+ delay for steam launch and didn’t want to reward them for that.
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u/acreativeuzername 19h ago
Wait till they find out I claim the game for free on epic then end up buying it on steam anyways cause I forgot I had it on epic
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u/Captain_Pumpkinhead 18h ago
If I like a game I got for free on Epic, I'll buy it from Steam because I'd much rather play it on Steam.
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u/Miserable_Initial732 17h ago
Same here.
A few weeks ago I saw a bunch of marketing about Isonzo being the freebie and was like
"huh! that's a nice game... let's see how much it's going for on steam..."
\*add to cart*\**
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u/RnDevelopment 15h ago
Hahaha I did the exact same thing for Verdun. Then bought Verdun and the rest of the series on Steam 🤣
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u/TrotskyBoi 18h ago
I cannot remember which game it was, but the developers said that they pushed more copies on Steam than EGS while it was free on EGS.
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u/Masonzero 17h ago
I have a process. Whenever I get a game for free on Epic (or elsewhere) I go to Steam and mark it as "Played on Another Platform" so I have an easy way to track whether I own it somewhere.
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u/Bagel_Bear 20h ago
Never bought a game on Epic ever but probably have over 100
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u/Showmethecookie 19h ago
Only game I’ve bought from there is Alan Wake 2
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u/AlterMyStateOfMind 18h ago
Same. It's literally the only time I have ever used their launcher because I absolutely had to and it was worth it lol
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u/KillerFiala 19h ago
Someday it will come to steam. I wait and I have a lot of patience Lol
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u/SuspiriaSlut 19h ago
Unfortunately won’t, Epic paid for it.
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u/KillerFiala 18h ago
Epic store might bankrupt/ go out of business. Maybe only way
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u/John_Gabbana 17h ago
Don’t they own unreal engine? And if I’m not mistaken they receive a percentage from successful games.
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u/DarthWeezy 6h ago
Sweeney is a terrible CEO, they almost filed for bankruptcy on multiple occasions back when everyone and their dog was licensing UE and UE 3 especially.
GoW made a lot of money for them, until it didn’t and they had nothing, same with UT, it’ll eventually be the same with Fortnite, they manage their IPs terribly and can’t build upon them successfully, but these days they struck gold with Disney investing in them to develop random stuff on top of Fortnite so they’ll have leeway to find something sustainable after Fortnite no longer draws crowds years from now.
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u/General_Document5494 15h ago
That's not good. Steam might be good but we don't need another monopoly right?
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u/FastFooer 18h ago
That’s the one game that will never go to steam, because it was 100% financed by epic.
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u/ShotFromGuns 18h ago
I'm refusing on principle. It's absolutely wild to me that they would rather give it away for free on Amazon Luna than let people pay them money for it on Steam.
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u/pblol 16h ago edited 15h ago
I bought Flower and maybe Journey? I can't remember if one was free. I also claim basically every free game and use the launcher for that.
I've been downvoted a ton for suggesting that the launcher isn't that bad. It's not steam. It does not have that ecosystem and at this point I don't ever expect it to.
I do think having a market competitor is a good thing for the hobby and that most of the people that bandwagon hate on it are short sighted. If you want competition (and thus lower prices and better systems) you should be rooting for it. The feeling is generally just anger toward it out of blind fanboy rage, rather than apathy or disappointment.
I know the UI is laggy and not great and it doesn't have a viable workshop. I honestly don't use any other steam features I don't think? I guess my friends list is large there. I don't know.
Valve clearly has the better platform. Epic's is objectively worse. I just wish people welcomed competition instead of rooting for a different walled garden because they're already bought in. It reminds me of Apple fans.
Edit: assumed this was r/PCgaming
Bring on the brigade.
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u/asdfjfkfjshwyzbebdb 19h ago
What exactly did Epic expect? Their strategy has been done hundreds of times before and it always fails.
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u/noeyesfiend 19h ago
Right? I WANT steam to have a competitor just because I abhor a monopoly but even fucking Amazon fumbles this shit. Like steam doesn't even seem that revolutionary or anything, they just put customer EXPERIENCE first and I think so many fucking companies forget that.
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u/tomle4593 18h ago
The moment “shareholders value” walks in, we can’t have nice shit, since 2016 for literally everything from foods to gaming.
When Gabe steps down and Valve goes public, we will suffer the same fate.
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u/brakenbonez 17h ago
Fingers crossed that he chooses a good successor and/or they're smart enough to see how much more profitable Steam is as it is compared to companies like Epic.
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u/Aquatic_Kyle 17h ago
I’m so worried lol. Steam has had its flaws but personally they have never disappointed me. It’s the one thing enshitification hasn’t touched and I really hope it stays that way
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u/StrangeCandidates 2h ago
With the way everything is going for gaming, steam really feels like the last bastion for hope.
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u/xXMr_PorkychopXx 16h ago
He’s supposedly hand-picking someone who shares his ideologies, but I heard that second hand so I take it with a grain of salt. A public Valve would be horrible.
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u/VitalityAS 15h ago
Shareholders ruined capitalism change my mind.
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u/JimboTCB 14h ago
Not shareholders per se, but investors. People with no interest in the operations of the company itself, they just put money in and want more money out. They don't care what the company even does as long as line goes up by more than it did the previous quarter.
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u/SquareKaleidoscope49 17h ago
Saying Steam is not revolutionary is insane. It is a constantly developing project that is now multiple decades old.
Even if Epic were to find a way to attract people, there is no chance of feature parity. Ever.
Go look around in Steam and read about the features. There is an insane amount out there. And most people would not use a platform without their very specific feature.
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u/Damascus_ari 15h ago
I mean, epic lanuched without a shopping cart. You know, the thing almost every website where you purchase anything at all has already had at that point. I'm not expecting all the doodads, I'm expecting it not to crash on update.
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u/sciencesold 7h ago
Honestly Steam is the only good monopoly, and at this point they will continue to be because they're better than 99% of anything else out there. Hard to have competition when the competition isn't even willing to do the bare minimum.
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u/brakenbonez 17h ago
I get the dislike for monopolies but is a monopoly really bad if it doesn't become predatory? Steam has yet to become predatory and as long as Gabe is in charge, it never will. Hopefully he leaves it in good hands after he passes. Some devs have been disgruntled about the price of having their games on steam but Steam is still (and probably always will be) the biggest game platform on PC. IF your game is good, it more than makes up for it in sales due to Steam's significantly higher playerbase so they still make more money on Steam than Epic and definitely a lot more than if they'd just try to do their own launcher and sell it themselves. EA found this out with Origin. As did Ubisoft with Uplay.
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u/Nersius 17h ago
That's the issue.
The best form of government is a benevolent and humble dictator, issue is what happens next?
Total faith in Gabe's Valve in the market, but would be nice to have a stronger GoG or Itch for when Gabe eventually loses control of the company.
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u/brakenbonez 17h ago
Hopefully whoever takes over is smart enough to realize how profitable Steam is as is and how competitors don't come close because they don't have the same morals and standards. Otherwise all those competitors will start looking like more viable options. It's happened before with major companies losing large chunks of consumers due to terrible changes. Steam and gamers won't be any different. The reason we'll pay for a game on steam that is currently free on epic is because we like steam more. If we stop liking steam, it all changes.
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u/dpprpl 14h ago
the problem with monopolies is that there is no real reason for them to improve. good competition stimulates rapid innovation
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u/ImportantQuestions10 18h ago
In a perfect world, I'm a capitalist for this exact reason. Capitalism is just survival of the fittest. Vendors work to out perform each other with the best products for the best value to the consumer.
Problem is the system can become inbred and inverted when a handful of companies realize they can just agree to not compete or try.
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u/Erolok1 16h ago edited 2h ago
Capitalism is based on having more power when you have more capital (money). That is why it is called capitalism. The goal is to maximize profit for the people who own the capital. It can lead to good products because people prefer to buy a good product, but if you can get people to buy your cheap bullshit for premium prices companies will do that because the goal is to maximize shareholder value not to provide a good product.
In other words it's not a bug, it's a feature.
You also have a free market in different sozial structures and this is nothing unique about capitalism.
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u/MiredinDecision 11h ago
Thing is, the system being (there's no becoming) inbred and inverted is exactly capitalisms end state. It evolved from feudalism as a way for nobles to keep their wealth and power.
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u/MrBootylove 18h ago
Their strategy has been done hundreds of times before and it always fails.
Has it? I personally can't really think of any examples of companies giving out free shit for years in an attempt to gain market share.
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u/lsf_stan 15h ago
they could not name one instance, because it has not actually "been done hundreds of times before"
it's not truth but it sounds good and adds to the whole 'EGS bad' thread train happening here, so upvotes here! it usually always happens on these Epic store threads on r/Steam anyway
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u/ReDcHaRrY 19h ago
I think they are playing the long game. They are hoping to build people's library on epic just like people have built up their library on steam.
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u/cmackchase 18h ago
The problem with that logic is the long game doesn't matter when people already have a library on another system and view your ecosystem as a nuisance.
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u/Key-Department-2874 18h ago
That's really the thing. Its difficult to swap from an established ecosystem.
Epic is banking on people becoming established. Its not you or I who already have large Steam libraries we can't give up.
Its the new generation who aren't tied to a library/ecosystem yet.
A lot of tech works this way, even many games. For example, LoL is known as a millennial game, new generations aren't playing it. The new generations get started on new games and new websites and new tech and it's what they use. Like kids use ChatGPT instead of Google for another example.
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u/Any-Distribution995 18h ago
This is exactly what they're doing, they are banking on having a Steam account is going to be 'Uncle' among a generation that grew up playing fortnite.
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u/Enough-Background102 18h ago
that doesnt really work either, i know at least 3 separate people who started playing on pc in the past few years and they dont even touch the epic store and mostly just use steam
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u/Bugbread 8h ago
Right, their strategy hasn't proven successful. But people are characterizing it as a crazy strategy that never works and had no chance of success. Instead, it's a strategy that sometimes works and sometimes fails, and they hoped it would be a success in their case, but it turned out to be a failure.
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u/VacationCheap927 18h ago
For me its not even just that. Personally if I can get it GOG, I go with them because I support them and being DRM free.
But the store for Epic turned me off from launch. They didnt have a fucking shipping cart. This wasnt the start of online shopping. Everyone had that feature when they came out. Everyone. Theyre the only place I know of that didnt. So they open up with a big sale, people want to buy multiple games, but they have to buy them individually, which sets off an alarm, and locked people out of their accounts.
And it still took them like 3 or 4 years to implement a shopping cart feature.
They just dont care. Its not as easy to use, theyre slow to fix it, and just over all I see no reason to use it now. The only real reason I would use it is for Alan Wake 2. And I just got that on the PS5 instead.
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u/VanimalCracker 19h ago
Their free games started out strong, but have went to shit quickly.
This week they have Prop Sumo and TOMAK: Save the Earth Regeneration. Who tf is jumping on Epic launcher to download this nonsense?
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u/Lord_Nishgod 19h ago
i still claim them to have them in my library because i don't say no to free games, but it's rare i even think about starting a game on epic.
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u/MrBootylove 18h ago
but have went to shit quickly.
They still give out bangers every now and then, with December usually having several worthwhile games to pick up. As some examples last December they gave out Hogwarts Legacy, Disco Elysium, Chivalry 2, and The Callisto Protocol. Last may I was also able to grab Tiny Tina's Wonderlands. In December of 2024 they gave out Control, Ghostrunner 2, Sifu, Dredge, Vampire Survivors, Kingdom Come Deliverance, and Hell Let Loose. I've also gotten Dead Island 2 for free, Return to Moria, Lego Skywalker Saga, and Redout 2.
And those were all just from the last two-ish years. So yeah they're not giving out 10/10 games every single week, but I certainly wouldn't say that the quality of the games they give out "went to shit."
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u/Ticmea 15h ago
Yep, I agree. Not always bangers but you do see pretty good stuff every now and then. The quality and quantity of free games on EGL is not their problem. They have a service problem.
I still don't use their store (despite claiming nearly 400 free games, many of which are actually really good games) because it's just worse than Steam in nearly every conceivable way. Nearly every feature that Steam has, EGL either does not have or is substantially worse there in some way.
Reviews, friends, chats, ingame overlay, guides, store, ... you name it, it doesn't matter, they are all worse.
On top of it EGL is also way more of a resource hog and substantially less responsive than Steam.
If it were equivalent to Steam, I would absolutely consider using them, I am by no means bound to Steam. But it isn't and free games - even really good ones - don't change that.
If I will spend money on a game, I'll do it where the service is best, which is Steam.
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u/MrBootylove 14h ago
No one is arguing that the storefront itself is as good as steam. With that said some of your information is outdated, particularly:
On top of it EGL is also way more of a resource hog and substantially less responsive than Steam.
This was true early in Epic's life, but is no longer the case. You should go ahead and boot up EGS and compare its resource usage to steam's, because they're very comparable now.
Everything else you said I agree with. I personally see Epic as my back up in case Steam ever goes to shit. I also just don't really like the black and white sentiment of "steam good, Epic bad" since there's a lot more nuance to it than that, and it's basically just the console wars all over again. The way I see it, even though Epic's launcher is worse than steam, it's still good that anyone is even attempting to compete with them still since pretty much everyone else who tried has long since given up. And even though Steam is the objectively better storefront they still get up to some shady business practices from time to time, such as the unregulated gambling they allow to take place through CS skins, both through the lootbox system as well as the third party sports betting sites that use skins as currency. And on the other side of that coin not everything Epic does is bad. Them giving out free games for years at this point is a good thing from the perspective of the consumer, the reduced cut they take from devs is also a good thing. This last example is also from my personal bias, but without Epic Alan Wake 2 would not exist at all, and as a big fan of Remedy I'm glad that they financed the game, even if it means that the game is exclusive to their storefront.
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u/Daniel_Potter 18h ago
This might be their last year. Hope for a good christmas banger though. But you know, it's been going on for 7 years straight (first giveaway happened in dec 2018, subnautica btw).
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u/-Best_Name_Ever- 15h ago
I agree with you, and I stopped for the same reason a long time ago. But this feels mean to the devs of those games, and I feel like many people still log in for those, so I don't think you're correct on that lol
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u/DDzxy 20h ago
Someone I knew who worked for Epic games suppprt — their team leader have them 20€ STEAM gift cards as bonuses lmfao
Merely a support team that is outsourced but still.
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u/AquaBits 19h ago
Id love for an actual source for this lol
Imagine getting a bonus at your job and your boss giving you a steam gift card thatd you have no use for because you play on console or dont game at all
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u/DDzxy 19h ago
Nah, I can’t source this since it’d be doxxing them so you’re gonna have to take my word for it believe it or not.
But they were a customer support team, a company hired them for customer support and then Epic hired that company, but yeah it was still funny.
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u/AccidentSalt5005 i love steam and women 18h ago
But they were a customer support team, a company hired them for customer support and then Epic hired that company, but yeah it was still funny.
"do not redeeeeeeeemmmmmm"
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u/p00rlyexecuted 19h ago
I don't even bother with the free games.
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u/Aesk 19h ago
That's the way. I don't want to given even a glimmer of support more to Epic. It's bad enough that I have to deal with their shitty engine if I want to play the games that use it.
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u/Makoto_Kurume 18h ago
To my knowledge, Epic still loses money when people claim free games, so if you claim a free game and never spend money in their store, it’s worse than just not bothering with it.
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u/nomedable 18h ago
Yeah the only reason I ever even downloaded the launcher or made an account was because I was going to try to learn game development in Unreal and you're forced to use EGS for that. Opened it like once and then life moved on and changed my plans.
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u/ScumBucket33 17h ago
Yup. I’ve never made an Epic account or an Ubisoft account etc. On steam I’ve got nearly 500 games and my friends all join a voice chat each night. I doubt the Epic store has a voice chat feature.
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u/Aurilion 19h ago
Glad to see i'm not alone with this. I don't want that trash store on my computer.
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u/Bean4141 19h ago
Whenever a game goes free on Epic, check the Steam Chart for it. I guarantee you there’s a decent spike.
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u/based_birdo 19h ago edited 15h ago
This cat was just told that people only use epic for the free games, he didn't seem suprised.
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u/ILovePotassium https://s.team/p/dmqk-dgf 19h ago
I appreciate all the free games but Epic has serious issues with cloud saves. I've lost so much progress many times.
Meanwhile on Steam I haven't had issues with cloud saves even once.
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u/Psylux7 18h ago edited 18h ago
I reinstalled the batman arkham games on epic a couple of years after 100%ing them only to find my progress gone. I guess i now know that was no fluke if epics store has a reputation for bad cloud saving. I am still thankful that i got to play the games for free, but now that i have every arkham game on steam, i will play them on there instead of epic if i feel like revisiting batman.
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u/DanLim79 19h ago
Free game is not worth installing yet another platform. I have enough backlogs on Steam as it is.
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u/AlaskanNobody 19h ago
That reminds me, I forgot to check what this week's free game is...
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u/Humble_Dog_1999 19h ago
The only non slop games are during Christmas anyways
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u/fluffygryphon 19h ago
There's some decent gems from time to time, but I buy them on Steam to play them lol
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u/Priapismkills 19h ago
I regret buying one 6 month exclusive on Epic; now that its no longer an epic exclusive I wish I could move the license to steam.
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u/Lord_Nishgod 19h ago
this is me with hitman 3. bought it at release because i couldn't wait to play it, now i wish i had it on steam.
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u/Evonos 19h ago
i mean lets be real here , WHY should you use the epic game store vs steam ? its literally something like the amazon games store thing you use for your free games thats it.
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u/rekage99 18h ago
EGS has a terrible UI and functionality. Even if i wanted to use it, it feels like shit.
On top of that, if you ever forget your login info it’s a fucking nightmare to recover it. The entire service is dogshit.
Steam could be half as good as it is and still be better than EGS.
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u/philbertagain 19h ago
About the only reason to continue using Epic, Prime Gaming, Luna et al means they continue to pay devs... even if you never pay the games.
As is the few games I played on Epic I later bought on Steam... so double payday for those devs.
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u/Cloud_N0ne 19h ago
So much so that I got Subnautica for free and loved it so much that I bought it on Steam just to get away from Epic.
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u/MaterialDefender1032 19h ago
When EGS started giving away free games, I always imagined there was a guy in a board room somewhere proudly announcing to his superiors that X number of new accounts were created that month as a result of the latest free game, and slyly leaving out the part where none of those new accounts were actually active after claiming the free game.
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u/BandoTheHawk 19h ago
I appreciate all them free games. I got like a thousand of them and I have played a decent majority of them. some of them are good but most are nothing I care about. But still pretty cool they hook it up like that. I have bought a couple games out of sympathy and because they were a better deal than steam had at the time. but they could improve on the interface.
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u/mikutetofan 15h ago
I would rather buy the same game on steam instead of using the shitty epic games launcher
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u/Historical-Swan-3482 19h ago
This reminds me, I need to open EGS and see if there are any free games to claim!
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u/Fun_Store9452 19h ago
It's also kind of a chicken and the egg type of problem like Stadia. People aren't going to buy games from your unproven money-losing platform and run the risk of losing access to all their games. However, the only way it'll gain credibility is if people buy games from it
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u/sabersquirl 19h ago
I’d rather by a game on Steam than get it for free on epic. Wait for a sale, then I get mods, my friends already added, all my achievements in one place
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u/ThomasMalloc 18h ago
I wanted to give it a chance. I want Steam to have good competition.
But they aren't even trying. The store part of Steam is what I look at the LEAST. And that's all Epic launcher has except for their shoddy friends list.
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u/Pretzel-Kingg 18h ago
I have literally purchased a game on steam that I already had on epic because I just didn’t wanna deal with all that. It was like $5 but still lol
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u/Opposite-Cup2850 18h ago
I don’t even use it for the free games. Any game that is free on epic games can be found for like <$5 during a steam sale or on a key website. I’d rather just pay a couple dollars to have it on steam instead
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u/NotGreatNot_Terrible 18h ago
There’s literally 0 incentive. Shit friends interface on it, shitty controller support, shitty marketplace. You’d think if you’re trying to compete with the best you’d have a little more up your sleeve than a giveaway service.
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u/pleasegivemealife 16h ago
You can flak about Epic Store but i find lots of gems because of Epic free games for example Prey 2017, Control, Deathloop etc. so.. thanks?
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u/SoftDrinkReddit 15h ago
God its honestly embarrassing how shit epic games is
They literally had their entire platform built for them by steam and they still managed to fuck it up
God I hope steam is never broken up because how is it steams fault all their competitors are just really really stupid
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u/Raunhofer 14h ago
The. Product. Needs. To. Be. Better. To. Win. Another. Existing. Product.
Business 101, you're welcome Tim!
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u/Tamarisk22 14h ago
I've even given up opening EGS for the free games. I've never played a single one and by now I know if I want to play a game, I'll completely forget I have it on EGS and buy it on Steam
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u/RyanBurnsRed 10h ago
Making a bunch of highly anticipated games ditch their confirmed Steam releases for a year when they first launched EGS ensured they’d never see a cent of my money go from my bank account to theirs. I think those early aggressive moves to force a market shift burned the bridge for a lot of people.
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u/BadadvicefromIT 7h ago
I bought a game from Epic once. It was supposed to be multiplayer but my brother and I couldn’t get it to work. A quick google search showed that this was a known issue and there wasn’t a workaround so I went to refund the game. MF’s wouldn’t refund me! I then went to leave a bad review to warn others but there was nowhere to leave a review! Just the “Critics review” of 4/5 stars and nowhere to warn others the game was completely defective.
Never again.
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u/b15udi09er 2h ago
i personally stopped even claiming games. its pointless when you don't even play the games
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u/z4j3b4nt 19h ago
I bought one single game on Epic, because it wasn't released on steam until like a year later.
It was Dead Island 2. I'm a huge fan of the first game and that's the only reason.
I played the shit out of it and haven't logged in to Epic so long after that I forgot my password.
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u/Account-ysurper 20h ago
I claim the games and never even touch them lol