The other platforms on PC, for example Steam, itch, gog, all do better things.

Itch really supports game jams, which in turn supports smaller devs and puts out a lot of unique stuff, much of which is free. They also allow devs to choose what percent itch gets with even zero as an option.

Valve is a massive contributor to open source projects and the game dev community. They have contributed a ton to SDL which is used to make many games and engines, and Proton is rocketing wine development forward. Steam also allows adding non-Steam games and even lets you run them with Proton just as easily as Steam native games.

GoG is DRM free, enough said. That in and of itself is one of the most pro consumer stances.

The only plus for Epic is they give out free games, no other redeeming qualities or features.

Don’t forget the beauty of PC is that it’s an open platform, and Epic does nothing to support that.

Having healthy competition is a good thing and I’ve wished for a competitor to Steam for a long time until one day the monkey’s paw curled and we got Epic Game Store. To sum it up:

• Epic actively tries to introduce exclusivity deals to PC, something that goes very much against the nature of the platform. It is something we’re supposed to be above on PC and let console players deal with. PC gamers simply don’t want fragmentation in the market. We hate all the different shitty launchers publishers are making for the same reason too.
• Epic has a very hostile attitude towards Linux. Their anti cheat for example by default detects the mere fact of using Linux as a hack. For a long time if their anti cheat was included it was an absolute no go on Linux. Their store also works like crap on Linux, if at all.
• EGS lacks necessities for then to call themselves a good store like reviews, good support and refund policies, ease of mod support, wishlists, etc.
• Their UI is just plain bad.

But the main point is the first one. If they bothered making a good store they wouldn’t need to make most of PC gamers angry by introducing exclusivity deals, but they can’t be bothered to do that, so they go for hostile competition instead at the detriment of the customers.

Sweeney (the CEO of Epic) says that he wants competition with Steam, but many of his actions point toward that he really just wants to be the guy at the top (ie, he wants to be the monopoly instead of Valve). He’s taken a fair number of anti-consumerist stances, which vary from understandable to clearly anti-competitive.

Epic is known for making exclusivity deals with 3rd party studios in which Epic bribes the studio with money, and in exchange, the studio does not release their game on Steam for 1 year.

At several points, this occurred after a studio already said that they will release on Steam, and the studio would have to walk back and delete their Steam listing.

Iirc, at one point Epic bought out a studio and had them remove the Steam listing for an already-released game, causing the game to be unplayable for people who had already bought the game

Edit: this apparently happened twice (Unreal Tournament and Rocket League), but it appears that the games still work for the people who bought it. I think the concern was actually that Steam players would lose functionality due to not being supported anymore after the unlisting

The Epic Game Store released in a non-functional state, and development on it is extremely slow. The first impression of the broken store likely still influences many people’s impression of the store. But it’s still missing many features that many gamers want to see in a store.

There were various rumors when the store first launched that it contained spyware. My understanding is that those rumors never fully got disproven, especially since some of the claims were supported by at least some evidence

Epic does not support Linux, and Sweeney has openly said that he does not plan to support Linux until it becomes more popular. He did immediately jump on board with supporting Arm though, which caused a lot of Linux gamers to think that he just doesn’t want to support Linux

Sweeney is a pretty abrasive person and iirc he made a lot of concerning statements on his social media. Several of them (as mentioned above) indicate that he wants to dethrone Valve so that he can be the monopoly instead

Overall, many gamers are in support of more competition in the game store space. Unfortunately, many gamers also think that Epic is an untrustworthy competitor, and they believe that Epic has a serious chance of making the gaming industry worse if they become more popular. As a result, many would prefer for Steam remain the monopoly rather than to take a bet on Epic.

Here are some reasons:

• exclusivity deals, forcing them to drop from steam even after they first announced release on there. They also target crowdfunded games like phoenixpoint.

• The launcher is spyware

https://www.resetera.com/threads/developing-epic-games-launcher-appears-to-collect-your-steam-friends-play-history-up2-valve-responds-see-threadmarks.105385/

https://forums.unrealengine.com/t/epic-launcher-and-privacy/123592

• and epic is owned by tencent 40%

• They not really trying to improve their launcher but instead focus on hurting steam and by extension the users.

Its like some shady guy trying to lure kids to a van by offering free candy.

The launcher is security risk for your system https://www.reddit.com/r/fuckepic/comments/1hm9mh9/epic_games_launcher_had_a_serious_security_flaw/

Even if they have fixed that specific issue, why would you believe they have fixed anything else?

Epic Games Launcher Incorrect Default Permissions Local Privilege Escalation Vulnerability

CVSS SCORE

7.8

This vulnerability allows local attackers to escalate privileges on affected installations of Epic Games Launcher. An attacker must first obtain the ability to execute low-privileged code on the target system in order to exploit this vulnerability.

The specific flaw exists within the product installer. The product applies incorrect default permissions to a sensitive folder. An attacker can leverage this vulnerability to escalate privileges and execute arbitrary code in the context of SYSTEM.

DISCLOSURE TIMELINE

2024-07-16 - Vulnerability reported to vendor
2024-12-04 - Coordinated public release of advisory
2024-12-06 - Advisory Updated

That timeline is disgusting

So in essence, its not bad because it trys to compete with steam. Its bad because they really dont try to compete and just do anti-user things. And people dont care because “yay free games I’m never going to look at again”.

If you want to see what actual competition looks like at the moment, take a look at GOG.

Epic makes their money off microtransaction stores and they bought exclusive rights to a bunch of titles a while back, meaning you could ONLY play them on Epic.

There are worse companies, though.

Honestly, haters gonna hate.

I don’t care about features, I care about a good price. If the game is cheaper on Epic, I buy it there.

People should like Epic for giving more money to developers than Steam.

I hate it because it’s like they’re trying their hardest to make a shitty storefront.

It’s awful.

I get almost none of the information I need when on a game’s store page. Meanwhile, I get all the info I need and then some on the same game’s Steam page.

It’s like they don’t want to sell their product.

I do definitely appreciate the weekly free games. Sometimes, like this week, they have solid offerings. It’s Dead Island 2 this week, btw.

100%.

Gamers act like Gabe Newell is a god, when he’s just a billionaire that charged them more than he needed to, like all the others.

Epis using Fortnite money to break up Apple and Google’s app store monopplies an objectively good ded

There’s absolutely nothing wrong with epic games store. People think just because everyone on the internet told them not to like it so they have to not like it. It’s a store. It sells you games then when you click on the game it opens so you can play. That’s it literally that’s all it does same as steam same and Xbox. Just like stores in real life I buy things where the price is the best which sometimes means I buy on epic or steam depending on the sales.

As others said, EGS is just a fucking cancer, not a competition. A good competition to Steam is actually Microsoft App Store. It’s a very streamlined mobile-like experience.