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 end up claiming the games and never playing them. I wish they’d be more customer friendly, they’re swimming in money (fortnite + unreal royalties) but couldn’t for their lives surpass the very low quality bar of Origin or even UPlay!
I have epic only on my steam deck and refuse to install it on my main pc
I only actively seek games I want to play. I have negative desire to hoard games I know I will never open. I probably wouldn’t take the clutter even if they paid me to take it. Steam or Epic.
My Steam library is caked up with a bunch of decade old Humble Bundle packing peanuts and frankly I kind of wish it wasn’t.
On the rare chance a game I’ve been wanting to play is the free givaway, I might take it if it’s on Steam just because I’m already invested in that platform. If Epic was the one giving it away I probably wouldn’t bother. I don’t need my games library splintered across multiple launchers. I’m already annoyed at having the one. I’d prefer no launcher at all.
If it’s free, it doesn’t hurt to grab it.
But in general, I don’t like to play through Epic anymore. The Expanse Telltale game was the last straw for me. It was an Epic exclusive for a bit. I mostly play through Steam link on different devices, and adding the Expanse as a non-Steam game would only let you play the first chapter. Nah, I’m out.
…really? Are you sure you didn’t just only get the first episode for free? Some of those kinds of story games were released like that. That seems above and beyond Epic’s usual shit.
The license is tied to playing it through the Epic store. Tried it both ways. Plays all the episodes fine playing through Epic. Only lets you play the first episode as a non-Steam game startup, even using the epic launcher as the executable.
But I play mostly on Steam link, so that doesn’t work for me. Luckily it finally came out in Steam. But that’s my last purchase from them.
I got pretty much the same opinion as you, probably a bit angrier about all the shit they did, with Unreal Tournament, their store and spyware and exclusives, and their unoptimized bloated game engine taking over the industry.
So no, I guess I don’t claim those games or have an account. I already have a million games I’ll never finish playing on Steam and emulators anyway.
But what’s a million more?
I’ve claimed most of the free games, but only played a few, and I’ve certainly repurchased some that I have claimed on EGS. I’ve never installed their client (I play through Heroic) and never purchased anything. It takes about 30s to claim on my phone, so I claim on the toilet each Thursday.
I like to think I’m costing EGS more money than by not doing this.
