The Ongoing Disasters of the EPIC Games Store

Weird, I beat the game already and never had any problems with stuttering, and that's playing it on my cheap GTX 1060 6GB optimus notebook (on DX11).

 

what settings? i might try it with my laptop 1070

 

Yeah, I keep hearing about people experiencing stuttering, but I have not seen any issues with that... even with all of the settings maxed out.

 

I played it on DX11, High preset, Physx on, tessellation off, texture filtering 4x, low motion blur. I didn't always get 60fps, but it was still very playable. The developers recommend a 1070 to get 60fps at 1080p on High preset, so you should fair great with your 1070.

 

high preset just made the smoke effects so heavy that it tanked the fps. so i just stuck with medium and no tessellation.

 

What's with all the hate the epic store gets?
submitted 6 days ago by oarngebean
https://www.reddit.com/r/gaming/comments/asvzws/whats_with_all_the_hate_the_epic_store_gets/

Traison 5 points 6 days ago
"No user reviews. That's enough for me."

oarngebean[ S] 3 points 6 days ago
"Oh wow didn't know that was a thing. Yeah that's pretty crappy"

[I've posted a number of video's and articles here in this thread that go through what Epic is missing that is standard on Steam - this guy that started the thread hasn't done even the most basic of investigation or taken the time to educate himself - at least he's putting it out there to learn]

CC_Keyes 11 points 6 days ago*
"They're paying for 3rd party exclusivity when in reality there's nothing stopping the games selling on multiple stores such as Steam or GoG. To make the matter worse, the Epic launcher is extremely lacking on features. Literally all you can do is launch games and send text messages to online friends.

Spoiler: Lots more good points...

The launcher also has absolutely terrible security as 80 million accounts were exposed a couple of weeks ago and accounts get hacked daily because the system does not block login attempts after a certain number of attempts, allowing anyone without 2FA to be brute-forced which sucks if you have any payment information stored.

It's also extremely buggy. There was a guy who bought the new metro game and got charged 8 separate times. In the comments of his post, other users also reported the same issue so it wasn't isolated.

Epic customer service is almost non-existent. There are complaints daily and support can take up to a month to reply if they even reply at all. Sometimes people just get automated messages back that are no use at all, and any new tickets they open result in the same automated response. A user posted a thread detailing his awful experience with support yesterday and it took 20 thousand upvotes before he received a reply from Epic.

Many people like to use the 12% cut Epic take to ignore all those flaws, but in reality Steam uses the money to host its numerous features free-of-cost for millions of users such as download servers, cloud saves. storage for the millions of screenshots, artwork, videos etc users upload and the entire social aspect of Steam (community hubs and activity feeds). Plus Steam's take actually lowers after the game reaches a certain number of sales.

I'm not some 'Epic bad Steam good' guy but hopefully that will give you an insight into why people are upset at being forced to use the launcher. People should use it because they want to, not because they are forced to."

oarngebean[ S] 4 points 6 days ago
"Ok. I had no idea about the lack of security on the platform that and the lack of customer care is enough to change my view on them. That is absolutely horrible. They must of just dumped the fortnight money into this not knowing what they where getting themselves into"

WastedWaffles 0 points 6 days ago
"Instead of listing multiple features that are missing, I'll give you one example.

They don't have community game forums for the games available on their store. Steam has a sub forum for every game released (even the less popular games).

When Epic store gave away Subnautica away for free a few months back, some users there had problems running the game that was specific to the epic store. So what did these people do? They went on to the steam subnautica forums to get help on their Epic store specific problem.

If I was the owner of valve/steam I would have banned these people and deleted all their steam games. Taking the piss, using up the bandwidth on my forum to ask about a specific problem related to epic. Tough luck that epic don't have specific game forums of their own. But then again when it comes to business I'm an ass. Valve just let people discuss technical problems that has nothing to do with them."

[ Another example of Good Guy Steam. Steam also didn't sue to stop Deep Silver from taking Metro: Exodus which would have ruined the franchise, again Good Guy Steam. ]

dsimonsez -6 points 6 days ago
"They made fornite. Good enough reason to hate em I'd say"

oarngebean[ S] 1 point 6 days ago
"I don't like fortnight. But they made gears of war so I think that evens out"

Too bad Epic / Tencent have such bad security + CCP overlordship + no games I'm interested in getting on the Epic Store; it's gonna be a long road for the Epic Store to gain credibility.

 

Is this all true?

I've been away for some weeks and I was looking forward to getting home and jumping into this new Metro. Ii it not back on steam (will it ever be)? I can't say how much I'd hate to have to install yet another piece of software for this. Also, online only??? That would really be a deal breaker, no matter how much I love the Metro universe.

 

tl;dr Metro: Exodus released on 02/14/19 on Epic Store exclusively for 1 year, but will be back - already announced - on Steam on 02/15/20

Yup, in short, Tencent is leveraging their 48% ownership in Epic Store by funding exclusive payout's to publishers to move to the Epic Store for a 1 year exclusive arrangement. Details of the pay-off + extras is unclear, but there have been some leaks including revenue assurances should the sales not materialize on Epic they would have received by listing elsewhere.

Deep Silver the Metro: Exodus publisher in control of where the game is sold, had an agreement with Steam - non-exclusive - and advertised for over a year and had pre-orders on Steam, then at the last minute - 2 weeks before release - Tencent / Epic dropped a bag of cash in front of Deep Silver - and Deep Silver took it.

Metro: Exodus is exclusive to Epic for 1 year, so no more Steam sales for M:E until 02/15/20. If you pre-ordered M:E on Steam you can play M:E on Steam. If you buy a boxed PC version it has a sticker with Epic info on it - pasted over the printed Steam info on the box. The box contains an Epic key for M:E.

See the rest of my posts and others about the evolving situation.

Edit: There is a rumored "fix" from Epic for offline play for some games... I thought it was for DRM free games - which wouldn't included Metro: Exodus, but maybe someone playing Metro: Exodus on the Epic Store knows if offline play is supported, details / limitations ?

 

you know what i think i'll wait till the exclusivity deal ends as hopefully by then i'll have work and get the money to build a desktop PC.

 

Metro Exodus exclusivity controversy poll results
Submitted 17 days ago by madminer95
https://www.reddit.com/r/Steam/comm...xclusivity_controversy_poll_results/?sort=new

 

The Epic game client has an offline mode like Steam does and I just launched and ran the Epic client and Metro Exodus just fine with the CAT5 cable unplugged on my desktop. I was not able to continue the game already started because it was not able to access the cloud saved progress, but I did not need to be online to play it starting a new game.

Of the 47%, I wonder how many were never planning to buy it anyway? We'll never know the answer to that one, but it would be interesting to know if that number is even relevant.

 

Of course it was going to end that way, it was /r/Steam...

 

Aren't Steam gamers the only Audience that matters in this particular poll?

Deep Silver and Steam built up the excitement for Metro: Exodus for over a year with the only Audience that mattered, the only place the PC version of Metro: Exodus could be played, on Steam. Steam gamers are Metro: Exodus for PC's entire pool of potential customers.

Only 9% of Steam users are planning on defecting to Epic, while 91% are either waiting for Steam re-release on 02/15/20, or saying "screw it" to Metro: Exodus's BS.

Either way, 91% of Steam gamers interested enough to respond to the poll aren't falling for Tencent / Epic's / Deep Silvers BS, and that's a 91% loss of game sales to Epic right now.

And, worse yet there's gonna be a delay of sales of Metro: Exodus for 44% of the Steam gamers until next year, if those gamers even remember to follow through and buy M:E in a year... probably the excitement will have worn off and they will wait even longer than 02/15/20 for a Steam Sale - resulting in even less revenue from sales.

That's a tragic loss of sales and revenue for any game. Very sad. Even sadder is when Deep Silver hears that Epic / Tencent aren't going to fulfill their promise of a revenue guarantee should sales not materialize on Epic.

The worst thing about this whole situation for Epic is that this whole Metro: Exodus Exclusive mess end result has been to make aware and solidify gamers against supporting PC Game Exclusives, which will spill over into poor sales for other Exclusive games on the Epic Store.

This one bad decision by Deep Silver will kill Epic's / Tencent's plan for signing game exclusives to steal business from Steam and other game stores.

Now all Epic / Tencent can do is to put the money they would have used to sign Game Exclusives into building out service features on the Epic Store. Which is what Epic / Tencent should have done in the first place.

 

I keep seeing insanely bad decisions from Tencent lately.

On a completely unrelated topic, look at Ring of Elysium - Tencent's free to play battle royale (on steam). I just found out that they recently locked out single and duo play modes. Only way to play now is in 4 member squads. If you don't have 3 other friends with the same schedule as yours and just want to play casually, you're out of luck, you must play with 3 randoms...

Back on this Metro BS, I'm definitely joining the "Not buy at all" group. No way I'm supporting this.

On the other hand, I'm not a great fan of having my steam library growing and growing and having to trust them that I will be able to access my games anytime in the future.

I miss the old, offline, disk/dvd-in-box days.

 

I guess the closest thing is paying for games in services like GOG, downloading and making a backup for later use (as part of the post-apocalyptic, anti-corporate offline rebellion, I might add).

 

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.fo...clusive-games-now-run-on-steam-for-linux/amp/

I was having a convo with a friend about it and he was going on about how steam is gonna have to compete hard against epic. But I sat back and noted....steam isn't competing against the other etailers. They are competing against Xbox and PS4 which really is indicated by their feature sets.

Sent from my LM-Q710.FGN using Tapatalk

 

I half expect valve/steam to release their own console system at some point, on par with xbox/ps and take over the world.

...and then release half life 3.

 

Valve swung and missed with Steam machines. There was a lot wrong with the approach they took, but I doubt they're going back to that well any time soon.

 

Yea, they kinda got spanked hard by SFF desktops and laptops. Because honestly why am I going to buy a 1200 home theater computer when I dropped (at the time) 2k on a gaming laptop.

But for most of steams life they have been the defacto PC games platform and they had to compete against the consoles and their offerings for services.


I wouldn't hold you breath for too long on the half life 3..I'm not sure valve passed basic maths. LMAO

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I just swapped to the DX11. And immediately I noticed all the stuttering everyone was talking about.

Now in DX12 I'm finding I get lower frame rates but smoother performance. Wtf. I also applied the same tweeks from one of the hardware unboxed guides for the game and it seems pretty satisfactory.

Sent from my LM-Q710.FGN using Tapatalk

 

I didn't notice any stuttering in DX11 (I'm in Taiga chapter).
Running on i7 7700HQ, 16 GB RAM, GTX 1070 (game installed on SSD) .

 

Interesting. I beat the game in DX11 no stuttering. If you don't mind me asking, what's your CPU/GPU/RAM configuration? Are you playing on an HDD or SSD?

 

No worries. And before the patch I was the same.

I have a GT83 6vr -044CA(not sure on that last bit)

But I have a
6920hq with a -30mv undervolt
1080 SLI stock speeds
Kingston 1tb SSD
64gb of ram.

Sent from my LM-Q710.FGN using Tapatalk

 

Strange; your setup blows mine out of the water, and I didn't experience stuttering. I wonder if SLI has anything to do with it. Are you using the latest nvidia drivers as well?

 

No, I am using 418.91

Yea, it's weird. I think it could be an issue with SLI in DX11.

Because doesn't dx12 support MGPU at some level without a huge amount of work? I'm not too sure about it in all honesty.

Sent from my LM-Q710.FGN using Tapatalk

 

That driver is the "Metro Exodus" driver and is what I used when I beat it, so I don't think the stuttering is a driver issue. My best guess is that the game isn't optimized well for SLI.

 

I dunno. I switch to DX12 and the stutter dissapears so I am happy even if I get 10% less frames on average.

So I lose like 10 fps out of 100 and play at 90.

Sent from my LM-Q710.FGN using Tapatalk

 

Sorry guys a bit of a side step from the main convo, know how to defeat the massive gorilla guys? I’ve tried the shotgun, unfortunately I didn’t take the railgun the idiot I am lol.

 

Just gotta put a lot of bullets into them. Though if you sneak past them it's not too hard and if you are on steam PSN or Xbox you get an achievement for doing so without killing them.

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I actually don't know how the game goes but I'd recommend using spoiler tags for anything that could reveal something about the story.

Spoiler: Metro Exodus

Just like this.

 

Finally got a chance to play it for a bit last night. Looks awesome, so far it does have that "Metro" feeling from the previous games, although I haven't reached the open world part.

PS: yes, I noticed that there was a little clean-up action going on in this thread. Got it, no more posts with the p-word

 

I completed it and hands down its the best game in a while!

 

Due to hacking attempts on my account, I've had my Epic Store account deleted. 3-5-19

I hadn't planned on using the Epic Store anyway due to the Deep Silver / Metro Exodus screw up's, and now that it was being hacked, I thought it best to delete the account.

This is from my thread started when Epic first opened and were giving away games, before they screwed up with Tencent / Deep Silver / Epic Metro Exodus BS.

http://forum.notebookreview.com/threads/announcing-the-epic-games-store.826248/#post-10876039

It was easy to delete and the process only took a few hours, Epic responded quickly.

https://www.google.com/search?q=how+to+delete+your+epic+games+account

https://epicgames.helpshift.com/a/e...ounts&f=how-do-i-delete-my-epic-games-account

 

I'm still in Volga, (I don't get much time to play) though my buddy living on my couch right now played through it all and is living it.

Though I'm worried what this dreaded p-word is.

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Oh, this brings back memories. I did have an epic games account about a year ago when I tried fortnite (not sure what was in my head at that time to drive me to do that). After a few runs I of course uninstalled everything but about a week or so later I started receiving emails with the exact same text as above (unsuccessful login attempts). At first I ignored them but they kept coming so I contacted their support to see how to delete my account. I can't remember what I was told but it was way more simple to just flag them as spam and delete forever. At some point I think gmail spam filter picked them up and they stopped showing up in my inbox. All good. Never touching epic games software again.

 

Previous Post:
Due to hacking attempts on my account, I've had my Epic Store account deleted. 3-5-19

I hadn't planned on using the Epic Store anyway due to the Deep Silver / Metro Exodus screw up's, and now that it was being hacked, I thought it best to delete the account.

This is from my thread started when Epic first opened and were giving away games, before they screwed up with Tencent / Deep Silver / Epic Metro Exodus BS.

http://forum.notebookreview.com/threads/announcing-the-epic-games-store.826248/#post-10876039

It was easy to delete and the process only took a few hours, Epic responded quickly.

https://www.google.com/search?q=how+to+delete+your+epic+games+account

https://epicgames.helpshift.com/a/e...ounts&f=how-do-i-delete-my-epic-games-account

If you still haven't deleted the account, it's really not tough to do it. You login and select Contact and Contact Us, then click on the drop downs in the messaging dialog (see: Previous Post above).

Epic will reply to verify your email account, which you do by clicking on the provided link - logging in - then clicking on the Verify button.

You may find your account compromised - you can no longer login - as I've seen reported, so I wanted to quickly respond and delete the account to close off the possibility someone would gain control of my account and start using it for bad things which would be done under my login / name.

Better to deal with it and end it now.

 

You know, you're right, I should delete it to make sure. I don't think it's compromised, I always pick random and long passwords but who knows. I think that's why I didn't want to deal with it at that time, I didn't want to verify my account.

 

So I tried the game on my laptop and after playing the game for a while the whole laptop decided to just shut down because if a low battery warning, even though the laptop was plugged into the AC.

There's something off with my laptop's power management.

 

I'm liking this new Metro a lot so far. I do get a lot of 'Fallout vibes' but I'm still at the first section where they've sent me to scout around the train.

Gun play feels good, dare I say it almost like a better made escape from tarkov. Feeling is realistic-ish but nowhere nearly so clunky. If I have to mention one negative, it would be that when spraying, after you stop, the game puts the crosshair automatically back to where it was before recoil started pushing it up. No biggie. Headshots are very satisfying.

 

What laptop? Some brands will use the battery to provide extra power to the system if the AC adapter can't keep up.

Did your battery need to charge after?

Sent from my LM-Q710.FGN using Tapatalk

 

I loved the game. I really liked how the desperation and catastrophic consequences on people's minds was illustrated via this game. There is really nothing good of nuclear war, no romanticism, no crazy mindless fun (FC New Dawn), it is just plain hopelessness and a world void of anything humane. I really suggest people playing it to do so slowly, reading all the notes, listening to all the conversations, radio chatters and tapes, the atmosphere is incredible.

 

I'm enjoying it so hard. The best Metro.

 

Heads up: stolen Steam keys deactivated:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/thr...games-sales-flop.827320/page-31#post-10892036

I'm not interested, but maybe someone else is game to try it...

G2A has Global Steam Key for Metro Exodus (maybe more, and cheaper too) for $70 and another listing for $64:

Metro Exodus Steam Key GLOBAL
https://www.g2a.com/en-us/metro-exodus-steam-key-global-i10000068327002

 

FYI:

Metro Exodus Stuttering Fix & Increase FPS
http://forum.notebookreview.com/threads/metro-exodus-stuttering-fix-increase-fps.827986/

 

Here's another one into the pot:
https://www.resetera.com/threads/de...nds-play-history-epic-responds-see-op.105385/

 

Developing: Epic Games Launcher appears to collect your Steam Friends & Play History (Epic responds, see OP)
Thread starter Madjoki Start date Today at 3:55 PM
https://www.resetera.com/threads/de...nds-play-history-epic-responds-see-op.105385/

What?!, Chinese spying on users, copying private data to expand their commercial business, what a shocking surprise.

Epic Game Store, Spyware, Tracking, and You!
submitted 1 day ago * by notte_m_portent
https://www.reddit.com/r/PhoenixPoint/comments/b0rxdq/epic_game_store_spyware_tracking_and_you/

"So I've been poking at the Epic Game Store for a little while now. I'd first urge anyone seeing this to check out this excellent little post to see how things go titsup when tencent gets involved. Of course, it shouldn't even need to be stated that they have very heavy ties to the Chinese government, who do all sorts of wonderful things for their people, like building hard labor camps creating employment opportunities for minorities and Muslims, and harvesting organs from political prisoners for profit redistributing biomatter to help those less fortunate.

But this isn't about that, this is about what I've found after poking the Epic Game Store client for a bit. Keep in mind that I am a rank amateur - if any actual experts here want to look at what I've scraped and found, shoot me a DM and I can send you what I've got.

One of the first things I noticed is that EGS likes to enumerate running processes on your computer. As you can see, there aren't many in my case; I set up a fresh laptop for this. This is a tad worrying - what do they need that information for? And why is it trying to access DLLs in the directories of some of my applications?

More worrying is that it really likes reading about your root certificates. Like, a lot.

In fact, there's a fair bit of odd registry stuff going on period. Like I said, I'm an amateur, so if there are any non-amateur people out there who would be able to explain why it's poking at keys that are apparently associated with internet explorer, I'd appreciate it. It seems to like my IE cookies, too.

In my totally professional opinion, the EGS client appears to have a severe mental disorder, as it loves talking to itself.

I'm sure that this hardware survey information it's apparently storing in the registry won't be used for anything nefarious or identifiable at all. Steam is at least nice enough to ask you to partake in their hardware surveys.

Now that's just what it's doing locally on the computer. Let's look at traffic briefly. Fiddler will, if you let it, install dank new root certs and sniff out/decrypt SSL traffic for you. Using it and actually reading through results is a right pain though, and gives me a headache - and I only let the Epic client run long enough to log in, download slime rancher, click a few things, and then I terminated the process. Even that gave me an absolute ****load of traffic to look through, despite filtering out the actual download traffic. The big concern that everyone has is tracking, right? Well, Epic does that in SPADES. Look at all those requests. Look at the delicious "tracking.js". Mmm, I'm sure Xi Jinping is going to love it. Here's a copy of that script, I couldn't make heads or tails of it, but I'm also unfamiliar with JS. It looks less readable than PERL, though.

I didn't see any massive red flags in the traffic. I didn't see any root certs being created. But I also had 279 logged connections to look at by hand, on an old laptop, and simply couldn't view it all, there's an absolute ****load of noise to go through, and I didn't leave the client running for very long. It already took me hours to sort through the traffic, not to mention several hundred thousand entries in ProcMon.

If you want to replicate this, it's pretty easy. Grab Fiddler and set it up, enable SSL decryption (DON'T FORGET TO REMOVE THE CERTS AFTERWARDS), start up Epic, and watch the packets flow, like a tranquil brook, all the way to Tim Sweeney's gaping datacenters. Use ProcMon if you want an extremely detailed, verbose of absolutely everything that the client does to your computer, you'll need to play with filters for a while to get it right. And I'm sure there are better ways to view what's going on inside of network traffic - but I am merely a rank amateur.

I give this game storefront a final rating of: PRETTY SKETCHY / 10, with an additional award for association with Tencent. As we all know, they have no links to the Chinese government whatsoever, and even if they did, the Chinese government would NEVER spy on a foreign nation's citizens, any more than they would on their own.

I also welcome attempts from people who do this professionally to take a crack at figuring out what sorts of questionable things the Epic client does. Seriously, I'd love to know what you find.

NB: CreateFile in ProcMon can actually indicate that a file is being opened, not necessarily created.

edit: oh yeah it also does a bunch of weird multicast stuff that'll mess with any TVs on your network. Good job, Epic."

Epic response and reddit followup, more shady Epic deceptions found...
https://www.reddit.com/r/PhoenixPoi..._game_store_spyware_tracking_and_you/eijlbge/

diablo1903 1 point 35 minutes ago
"" Yes, they harvest your information as per their privacy agreement and terms of service, just like any other service."

I think the concern here is what information they are collecting. Sure, you agreed to it in the EULA, but that doesn't make it necessarily legal - or ethical.

Epic Games clearly does not need to know any information about my steam profile or what steam games i have installed - Doubly so for tracking any information about my friends."

 

That's interesting. Because my glasswire app would catch 2-3 instances of EGS chattering away.

Just another reason to reaffirm my not using. Kinda sad about Phoenix point though, another game that's gonna be a hard wait50 for me.

Sent from my LM-Q710.FGN using Tapatalk

 

There is absolutely nothing in here to get all excited about. I've already posted about this. There's zero new information here except trying to Fox News style throw some fear around for no reason.

 

Of course it's something to worry about, except for you, you like to take the easy road - the stick your head in the sand approach - mumbling nothings until it goes away - over taking the active common sense approach based on preventative avoidance.

Learn to stay away from Epic / Tencent and their continuing pile of worms, and stop supporting Epic Store with your funding, help stop Epic from pulling the same BS - stop encouraging Epic / Tencent to continue by giving them money!

Scumbag Developer BURNS Backers & Goes Epic Games Exclusive! Total Sellout
TheQuartering
Published on Mar 14, 2019
This One Is The Worst! Epic games poaches a crowd funded game and makes it an exclusive! This is a huge mistake. #EpicGames #PhoenixPoint #Xcom


This is the Worst Epic Store PC Exclusive Yet!
CultOfMush
Published on Mar 13, 2019


Will Borderlands 3 Even Make It To Steam, Or Will Epic Claim Another Exclusive Prize?
Laymen Gaming
Published on Mar 13, 2019
Tweets from Randy spark rumours the upcoming announcement for Borderlands 3 will be on an exclusive on the Epic Games Store


Phoenix Point Epic Games Store Announcement
Phoenix Point
Uploaded on Mar 11, 2019


Dazdigo 2 days ago
"I pre-ordered for GOG release. Going to refund since I don't want to support Epic."
- 26 Replies

RepublicOfPlay 2 days ago
"Epic weren't there for you when you needed funding 2 or 3 years ago. Your fanbase was. Disappointing."
- 7 Replies

Rigli Braun 2 days ago
"You deceived those thanks to whom this game exists."
- 9 Replies

Bjørn Martin Larsen 2 days ago
"I am sorry Julian, i supported you early and was eagerly awaiting this game. Now you have forced me to request a refund, which is unfortunate."
- 8 Replies

MMaRsu 2 days ago
"This is actually digusting because this is a fully invested Fig crowd-funded game where the game literally would not exist without people wanting the Steam and GoG keys."
- 31 Replies

Andrew Pugs 2 days ago
"WOW, after all the backlash of Metro, I cannot believe you did this. I'm a HUGE XCOM fan who had his eyes 100% zoned in on this game. I was dying for the next piece of news and now that I've seen it...you can forget my purchase. There are too many good games out there to get caught up in another EPIC sellout. You had my money at your first trailer, and now you can kiss it goodbye. I hope that profit margin was worth the customers you just lost."
- 14 Replies

...and many many more...

Epic and Tencent's pile of cash is going around and ruining game after game, community after community...

Are you going to help fund their efforts? Are you going to give these creeps money to keep corrupting desperate developers and publishers into making horrible decisions that ruin games and upsets the prevously happy community of gamers that now have to deal with Epic / Tencent's BS??

 

These game exclusive decisions have nothing to do with these ramblings about the client being akin to malware with zero proof. Stop conflating the two and spreading wall of text fear mongering conspiracy theories with zero knowledge.

If you want to rail on the business practices of Epic, the devs and/or publishers about the exclusivity arrangements that's one thing. Lets not forget they are all in it together, it's not just Epic. If they thought it made business sense to launch of Steam as well they'd just ignore the deals and do it. But these false claims of malware/data theft are hair-brained.

EDIT: I'd be happy to admit it if I was wrong, but I see zero proof anywhere in anyone's findings as well as my own.