33 replies to this topic

[Robinson Crusher]

I'm contemplating getting the MW5 refund, and have some questions. I've learned that EPIC is small, and don't care. I've learned that they take a smaller cut from the game developer, which may just be market forces from a small company seeking greater market share...

But I've also heard that there are rumors of maleware. Loading me up with maleware would be one way of profiting, while asking less from developers. Security is paramount for me. If there is any basis for this accusation then I will definitely refund.

Why exactly do people not want EPIC? Is it just because it isn't STEAM? This could easily all be PGI trying to find the money and time to avoid a Fallout 76 type release. If that were the only problem, I'd be inclined to stay with it. But if my system is at risk then I'll wait a year and pick it up on sale.

What's the problem with EPIC?

[Agent of Change]

https://mwomercs.com...ic-games-store/

There is in fact a full thread specifically about this. But also many other threads here and in google could have answered your question. There's generally a lot of answers ranging from just hating on a new platform, to disliking the company and many many degrees between.

[Bombast]

I'll summarize my problems.

1. The Epic Store has a history of being unsafe. Accounts are under near perpetual attack (And I'm pretty sure they stopped warning people about attacks after a while), and they've sent customer information to the wrong people multiple times. Probably not an issue if you're pre-ordering, since Epic will never have your credit information.

2. The Epic Store, feature wise, is terrible. Absolutely horrible. It's missing dozens of features that GoG and Steam offer, and it seems they'll never catch up to their own timetable to improve it. If you're just getting MW5 on the platform, and don't care about supporting the platform itself, you probably don't care. But I'm not paying for that garbage.

3. The Epic Launcher may not be malware... but it sure as **** acts like one. I caught it sending weirdly large amounts of data on one occasion, and when I had it installed, it had a bad habit of refusing to close. Even when I manually killed Epic's processes, Epic would restart itself. Without telling me.

4. Epic's competitiveness relies entirely on sniping popular games, throwing millions at the developer, and then forcing players to buy from them if they want to play. If you aren't concerned with how your games are made, you probably don't care. If you do care, that's not great. Personally, I'm not a fan of money fights.

Edited by Bombast, 05 August 2019 - 05:38 AM.

[WarHippy]

Bombast, on 05 August 2019 - 05:38 AM, said:

I'll summarize my problems.

1. The Epic Store has a history of being unsafe. Accounts are under near perpetual attack (And I'm pretty sure they stopped warning people about attacks after a while), and they've sent customer information to the wrong people multiple times. Probably not an issue if you're pre-ordering, since Epic will never have your credit information.

2. The Epic Store, feature wise, is terrible. Absolutely horrible. It's missing dozens of features that GoG and Steam offer, and it seems they'll never catch up to their own timetable to improve it. If you're just getting MW5 on the platform, and don't care about supporting the platform itself, you probably don't care. But I'm not paying for that garbage.

3. The Epic Launcher may not be malware... but it sure as **** acts like one. I caught it sending weirdly large amounts of data on one occasion, and when I had it installed, it had a bad habit of refusing to close. Even when I manually killed Epic's processes, Epic would restart itself. Without telling me.

4. Epic's competitiveness relies entirely on sniping popular games, throwing millions at the developer, and then forcing players to buy from them if they want to play. If you aren't concerned with how your games are made, you probably don't care. If you do care, that's not great. Personally, I'm not a fan of money fights.

Agreed on all points. I will also add that because a lot of people don't want it and don't have it co-op/multiplayer games suffer because you can't easily play with friends when you have nobody in your friends list. MW5 points out now how you can play co-op by inviting and/or joining friends through the EGS interface... assuming I bother with EGS nobody I know has it so **** me I guess...?

[jjm1]

Had Epic Game Launcher installed for years. While I'm not interested in buying stuff on it, I can't say its ever given me grief.

When I researched these spying accusations, it became apparent there's a lot of tin-foil hattery involved. If you hate being tracked, uninstall Steam, uninstall GeForce experience, don't visit any website or IP, uninstall Windows 10 and set fire to your bank card and mobile. Feel free to hate it, but collecting data on customers is normalised.

[Nightbird]

Nothing's wrong with EPIC, I just didn't want to be forced to use them.

Not everyone minds being bent over

[Agent of Change]

jjm1, on 05 August 2019 - 06:07 AM, said:

Had Epic Game Launcher installed for years. While I'm not interested in buying stuff on it, I can't say its ever given me grief.

When I researched these spying accusations, it became apparent there's a lot of tin-foil hattery involved. If you hate being tracked, uninstall Steam, uninstall GeForce experience, don't visit any website or IP, uninstall Windows 10 and set fire to your bank card and mobile. Feel free to hate it, but collecting data on customers is normalised.

I mean there is a certain amount of truth to that. Moving in the digital realm means a certain level of acceptance of risk, but not all risks are equal and not all platforms are equally well protected. There is a legitimate and personal choice to be made where you draw your particular line. It isn't hypocrisy to point our blatant issues with one platform while fully knowing that a different platform may do similar things in a more secure manner, that's just the reality of teh world we currently live in.

Beyond that, my personal beef with epic isn't so much their ****** launcher (which is IMO a feature desolate, barely alpha disgrace, that a company should be ashamed to have made live to customers) as it is their corporate culture and labor practices. And again similar to risk acceptance lots of companies do things we should be bothered by, but my personal line is drawn at near constant crunch... that shouldn't be accepted or supported.

he fact that their launcher is bad is a tertiary factor at best for me in this situation, the primary issue is and has been, PGI lied. that's it nothing fancy, they took money saying one thing, knowing it wasn't going to be the case, then changed the deal and were unapologetic. Lying should be a big deal, so yeah the problems with epic are many, but not the primary issue at hand.

Edited by Agent of Change, 05 August 2019 - 07:22 AM.

[JediPanther]

Even with just an epic account in general for just trying to learn unreal I've had to redo my account numerous times due to data breaches epic has had and the times I've found e-mails which are beyond count at this point which tell me my account was attempting to log in but didn't at times I've been at work or asleep. I finally quit the account and uninstalled anything epic from unreal to games.

Thankfully I've never given them any cc or bank info. When I do buy games it's usually on steam since they are far better with data protection,encryption and account saftey. Egs be damed;I won't use that crap. It's like tatooing your ssn or bank account infor on your head for people to take.

[MischiefSC]

It's not malware nor is there any actual credible evidence of accounts on the epic store being more unsafe than your Steam account - at least now that it has 2 factor authentication. There's a lot of invented hate for Epic because Steam brand loyalty and people like to invent drama.

It is however a pretty crappy client. There's 0 benefit to you using it, where as Steam has reviews you can check, mod support, friends list, it's very feature rich and stable. The Epic launcher is there for DRM purposes and marketing purposes. It's memory heavy for what little it does.

Also, exclusives are ****. I will always look for ways to avoid giving Epic money now and forever because I find the exclusives model to be horrible and anti-consumer.

However it's a good situation potentially for PGI and if you feel that, warts and all, MWO has been fun and worth your time and you think MW5 is going to be good then the Epic launcher isn't worse than a PGI created portal. You absolutely will be able to download MW5 through Epic and then just play it directly without the EGL at all. Most the players refunding likely did it because being dramatic makes them feel special and important. That pretty much the whole purpose of social media anymore. There's legitimate concerns over supporting Epic and if that moral stand is more important to you than PGI keeping way more of the money you're paying for MW5 or even playing MW5 for a year, that's a solid reason to refund. If you want to punish PGI for this business decision, well they've already worked that into the math but it's a principle for some people.

If your concern is the Epic launcher though, you'll need to install it to download the game then you can never touch it again.

[Nightbird]

MischiefSC, on 05 August 2019 - 08:16 AM, said:

Most the players refunding likely did it because being dramatic makes them feel special and important.

Um unless, they pre-ordered the Steam version and didn't like the bait and switch to what you admit is an inferior client?

[Mystere]

Nightbird, on 05 August 2019 - 08:36 AM, said:

Um unless, they pre-ordered the Steam version and didn't like the bait and switch to what you admit is an inferior client?

Then people should direct all the blame -- and the hate -- at PGI. It was they who made the decision to switch.

Edited by Mystere, 05 August 2019 - 09:02 AM.

[Nightbird]

Mystere, on 05 August 2019 - 09:01 AM, said:

Then people should direct all the blame -- and the hate -- at PGI. It was they who made the decision to switch.

They did, hence the refunds.

[Mystere]

Nightbird, on 05 August 2019 - 09:05 AM, said:

They did, hence the refunds.

Hmm, all(?) the threads on the topic suggest otherwise (i..e not all blame and hate are placed solely on PGI).

Edited by Mystere, 05 August 2019 - 09:12 AM.

[Agent of Change]

Mystere, on 05 August 2019 - 09:01 AM, said:

Then people should direct all the blame -- and the hate -- at PGI. It was they who made the decision to switch.

Which is the point really. There are lots of reasons to be mad at Epic and PGI. But it seems to all ways get straw-manned down to "Why do you hate the EPIC Launcher steam fan boi?" and "The EGL is a security black hole that will steal your life!"

The primary focus of this particular disaster should probably be IMO this: PGI lying shamelessly about an exclusive deal with EPIC planned and executed while a bad faith Steam Key pre-order was underway.

I mean it's not even speculation we have Russ's own words admitting as much, and if any one believes it only take a couple days to arrange a big money deal like we are almost certainly talking about I've got some beach front property in Arizona to sell you. Did EPIC's habit of buying exclusives to games already being sold on other platforms act as a the primary catalyst for all this? Sure it did. But PGI's willingness to take that devils bargain and then weasel and lie about it that is the real problem. They clearly don't give half a damn about customer trust, but when you've sold out I guess loyalty and trust don't mean much anymore.

Bu that's the thing again. EPIC definitely deserves some blame for this situation, but their multiple moves like this have made this a bigger issue for a lot of folks. And i think in some ways it's easier to blame the outside party and try to maintain the illusion that if not for this new guy PGI might have done the right thing. So yeah EPIC gets a bad wrap for their moves in teh marlet place and often deservedly so, but this mess belongs mostly to PGI.

Edited by Agent of Change, 05 August 2019 - 09:19 AM.

[Nightbird]

More or less. People pre-ordered a Steam key, and chose to refund it. It was other people that started the conversation about why EPIC is worse than Steam or what not. There may or may not be reasons, but it doesn't matter. In the end, it's only the PGI white knights trying to say EPIC is not bad, and that we shouldn't refund lol

[Agent of Change]

Nightbird, on 05 August 2019 - 09:22 AM, said:

More or less. People pre-ordered a Steam key, and chose to refund it. It was other people that started the conversation about why EPIC is worse than Steam or what not. There may or may not be reasons, but it doesn't matter. In the end, it's only the PGI white knights trying to say EPIC is not bad, and that we shouldn't refund lol

Internet gonna internet.

I mean have you met online gamers? Some of these folks would argue that they personally don't exist if it might win an argument online.

Edited by Agent of Change, 05 August 2019 - 09:26 AM.

[Grimm Shado]

I think the malware / CC theft concerns are very overblown. My reasons:

• In the 6 years I worked in desktop support, and my 10 years working in finance with a close relationship to IT infrastructure professionals, and having a few friends who are cybersecurity professionals, I have never once heard of someone being hacked by malware and losing more than just having to format and reinstall windows. There are lots of news stories about people being hacked and suffering large financial losses. There were also a rash of news stories about clowns in forests that turned out to be entirely baseless.
  
• Credit card companies have a very strong incentive to detect and prevent fraudulent transactions: By federal law the companies are 100% liable for any fraudulent charges (not you!). I've had credit card numbers stolen twice, and both times the company called or texted me within minutes of the charge being placed. They mailed me a new card express and I had it 3 days later.
  
• If you're worried about someone opening new cards in your name it's easy and free to sign up for credit karma or a similar service. Every time I've had authorized credit inquiry (for new loan or account), or opened a new account, credit karma emailed me within the hour.

Edited by Grimm Shado, 05 August 2019 - 09:37 AM.

[Grus]

So is no one upset that PGI was selling steam preorders even after they knew they were going to epic?...

[Nightbird]

Grus, on 05 August 2019 - 09:43 AM, said:

So is no one upset that PGI was selling steam preorders even after they knew they were going to epic?...

I'm sure some internet people are, but who cares about them or feelings. The choice is to refund or not refund. If you waste more energy on this than that decision, it's your loss for 0 gain.

[Agent of Change]

Nightbird, on 05 August 2019 - 09:57 AM, said:

I'm sure some internet people are, but who cares about them or feelings. The choice is to refund or not refund. If you waste more energy on this than that decision, it's your loss for 0 gain.

While I initially agree that teh fundamental choice is that simple. I for one believe there is value in discussing the issue and making clear to the bad actors that this sort of thing is noticed and disliked. But in general losing your mind over it... yeah I think that's where it becomes lost effort.

Edited by Agent of Change, 05 August 2019 - 10:10 AM.