“I used to think EGS was a Marketing Black Hole,” the New Blood CEO said, “but turns out having your game be free on Epic is great advertising for Steam sales!” Alongside the boost in Steam sales, Blood West also saw a jump in console sales as well while it was free on Epic.

That's incredible.

Oshry is far from the only developer to point out issues with the Epic Games Store. Just recently, in an interview with FRVR, Painkiller and Witchfire creator Adrian Chmielarz explained that Epic doesn’t feel like “home” to players, and that causes many to simply clock out, saying “EGS is a shop, and Steam is a community.”

I have a lot of free games on Epic. But when I want to play with my gaming group, we're using Steam. It's just where everybody is.

Sometimes the DLC for the free game on epic costs the same as the full package on steam. So epic is an extended demo really

Sure, try the buggy Epic version then buy the usable Steam version.

Also, imagine making a launcher that is so trash people will buy games on other platforms just to not deal with it.

It's a win for everyone except Epic. PURE BLISS.

The current free game are the two Styx games. I grabbed them on Steam when I saw they went 90% off so I'd have an easier time running them on my legion go and my Android phone. I learned of the games because of them being the EGS free game and the game looked up my alley

https://store.steampowered.com/app/242640/Styx_Master_of_Shadows/

https://store.steampowered.com/app/355790/Styx_Shards_of_Darkness/

It's true for me at least. If I like a freebie from Epic, I'm more likely to buy it on Steam also just so that I can use it easily with the Steam Deck without additional configuration.

I bought a game on steam once that I already had on epic for free. It was on sale for like $5 on steam(Hunter: Call of the Wild), and I was curious if all the shader pre-caching and optimizations steam does with the Steam Deck would have it run better with the steam version, compared to the epic games version.

Edit: my bad you guys. YES. It does run better. The pre caching steam games have is noticably gets rid of stutter. Mildly noticeable in a slower paced game like Hunter. Very noticeable in Borderlands 3 that's higher paced.

I've said this in the past but I think it's worth restating. I'm amazed that EGS is willing to even front the cost of these free games. Like I would expect some form of arbitrary restriction like requiring periodic actual money purchase to be eligible. They have posted income reports that state the free program just isn't working. Sure it's increasing numbers, but that isn't very helpful when your revenue is still decreasing ontop of the cost of the program. I mean it does help that its a flat cost and not a cost per install for them, but still.

for perspective: my last purchase was void train in super early stages of the game (2021 I think?) and prior to that was satisfactory somewhere around 2018 or 19. Meanwhile I have collected a lot of decent games from the program. And I'm one of the better cases. I have /tons/ of friends who have zero intention of ever actually buying anything on the shop, they only use it as a log in, claim the weekly freebie, log out or play the freebie game. Heck, there are programs that are dedicated exclusivley to log in as you, and claim the weekly freebies so you never even have to log onto the storefront. It isn't a sustainable model.

I feel like they would be better off forcing an annual payment history check on the platform, something stupid small like "if total paid is > 5$" or something cheap, or even like how steam does it where once you purchase something once everything unlocks. From a financial/business mindset, I don't get their intent on the current program. It only encourages people to grab games and never actually spend money on the sinkhole.

This is just the PS3 vs Xbox 360 game wars but worse. Stop being loyal to corporations you imbeciles, of course a dev will say whatever makes him more money. Including appeasing the fellating steam fanboys. The game could have gone completely unnoticed if it wasn't on epic, barely any sales, and even a minor bump in visibility would have created more steam sales regardless if users knew if it was available on epic for free. Unless I see numbers I don't care what this dev says and you shouldn't either.

But you're all rabid to hate on epic when both stores are just bum ass corporations and will circle jerk each other off on why your team is better.

Eeeeehhh, I don't even have the Epic Launcher installed. I keep claiming the freebies out of the habit, but I can't remember what games I have there. Last time I checked you can't even see your library via the website.

Fun thing: Kind of the same thing happening to me with Xbox Game Pass. Try out games, buy it on Steam later on sale