5 Reasons Gamers Are Mad at the Epic Store

Welcome to MojoPlays! Today, we’re looking at 5 reasons gamers are mad at the Epic Games Store. Competition can be a good thing, but Epic’s recent actions have riled up quite a lot of gamers.



Accusations of Spyware



Now, It should be fully disclosed that nobody is one-hundred percent sure whether this is true or not. But in the era of the internet; mud sticks, so these accusations are big problems for Epic. Users have blamed the Store’s launcher for some shady activity on their computers. It starts off with simple hardware surveys, but has also been seen trying to access the directories of other apps and getting involved with web browser dat. When it comes to why Epic would be involved in spyware, the company’s ties to Tencent, who own 40% of the company are cited. Tencent is a massive conglomerate based in China that specialises in Gaming, social media and internet service, which supposedly has heavy ties to the Chinese government. Though perhaps what makes this situation even weirder is that the Epic Games Store is blocked in China. Whether Epic Games are really mining people’s computers for info and then handing them over to third parties is anyone’s guess, since they vehemently deny it – obvious.









PC Platform Saturation



Years ago, PC gaming was simple enough – back when everything was still on a disc you’d be able to buy in the store. But now more and more big publishers and companies are creating their own platforms to build on the success of Valve’s Steam. While Steam almost unanimously remains the most popular platform out there, the new additions are just making players more and more frustrated. Most alternative platforms also don’t work as well as Steam; EA’s Origin is widely reviled simply due to the fact that its EA, Ubisoft’s U-Play doesn’t offer anything outside of Ubisoft titles, while GOG just doesn’t have a huge library to choose from. Bethesda launcher also received similar criticism with their launcher – though it now seems they may be dropping support for that in favour of returning to Steam. Lets also not forget that Google Stadia is on the horizon too, yes it’s a cloud service, but it’ll be yet another gaming library to keep track of.







People Who Don’t Like “Fortnite” Hate It



It’s success is the reason why the Epic Store was even able to happen to begin with. Its most celebrated battle royale game out there, and it has always been free to play game, making it incredibly accessible in a world where video games are getting more and more expensive. But “free” doesn’t always mean “good”, and many of Epic’s older fans feel left behind in the wake of “Fortnite’s” runaway success, with big franchises like “Gears of War” and “Unreal Tournament” falling by the wayside. Plus the frequent seasonal events give players a reason to keep coming back and drop more money on new skins. And that has left Epic with more money than they know what to do with, which will bring us to the biggest issue a little later. Just the association between Epic and “Fortnite” is enough to turn lots of gamers off for good, even those who would normally love the IPs the Epic Store has claimed.







Using Steam Data



While the Spyware claims are still accusations at this time, the Epic launcher has been outright caught spying on its competitors. The launcher was recently discovered to be spying on Steam directly, copying and using Steam data. This back-door is opened when users try to transfer their friends lists from one client to the other, but is being used to access much more information than it should be able to. Epic Game’s says that they’ll only obtain friends lists from Steam with the users permission, but Valve are reportedly not happy about this, nor are users to whom much of the data belongs.





Exclusive Games



Remember how we’ve said that Epic now has more money than they know what to do with? Well they’re using the fortune they’ve amassed from “Fortnite” to buy the rights to exclusively sell certain IPs on PC. With the biggest cases being “Metro Exodus” and “The Outer Worlds”. While it’s easy enough to download a new launcher, especially compared to many console exclusives lots of PC gamers aren’t able to play at all, it’s the fact that most of these exclusives were available on Steam for pre-order prior to their exclusivity announcements that has upset a lot of PC gamers. These exclusive deals also seem to only target Steam as “The Division 2” is also available on Uplay, and “The Other Worlds” is also coming to The Windows Store. Epic’s CEO Tim Sweeney claims that exclusives are the only way to “displace Steam” however The Epic Games Store’s chief Steve Allison has also said that they’ll stop pushing for exclusives after a while. Whenever that will be, we may never know.