Its no surprise that the Epic games store is universally hated by the majority of PC gamers, The reasons ranging from its ties with Tencent and the sheer lack of basic features that other popular game launchers have.
Recently it has been discovered that Epic has attempted to buy out large popular indie dev's in hopes of making the games exclusive to their own platform.
Some of the devs so far that they have attempted to buy out were the devs behind the popular PC game Factorio and Rise of Industry.
As pointed out by a Reddit user /u/fuckepic we now know that Epic is not only looking for big AAA titles to bring to its platform but also popular indie titles.
The devs mentioned thus far have openly declined Epics offers of a buyout. As seen in a tweet below one of the developers behind the game Rise of Industry have openly states that "their deal didn't appeal to me" and that "I want for as many people to have access to the game as possible.
Some gamers have openly stated that they will not buy any games on the Epic store and some have outright boycotted them entirely. Some users have even said they would rather pirate the game then give Epic one cent, But maybe they have a point? The Epic game store has been notoriously called out many times in the past for its poor security and constant fraudulent charges showing up on random users credit cards. Some users have even said that the 2 factor authentication didn't stop someone from buying something on their account.
The most common scam seems to be fraudulent charges in purchasing Vbucks on a unsuspecting users account and quickly giving those to the hackers main account. And leaving the user with the bill.
At this point there is no turning back for the Epic game store, the cat is out of the bag and gamers everywhere are highly aware of the Epic game stores issues. The Epic game store will have almost no chances of redemption if it cant fix its bare basic features such as a review, refunds, ability to play offline ect.
If the Epic game store just continues to get exclusive games without fixing its most basic features then it is doomed to fail. PC users are already being driven to piracy and other means of obtaining the game. I do not condone piracy, But maybe this will be the wake up call Epic needs to finally realize they cant win over gamers by simply buying out every developer they can.
This brings me to my next point, Does it really matter if devs bring their game to the Epic store just because of the extra revenue split? Will it mean more success for a developer? These are questions that devs have probably wanted to know as well.
There is already such a large negative stigmatism against the Epic game store that its already obvious it will have far less users than other platforms like Steam. So in the long run in theory would mean the devs would just make the same amount they would have on Steam.
For example if steam has 90K people that are guaranteed to buy a new popular indie game at a set price of $40 then that would equal to a total sale of $3.6 million. So if that same game is on the Epic game store it might have only 40K people who will buy it at $40. But since Epic gives devs a larger revenue split it would mean that the dev would make about the exact same amount it would have on Steam due to its lower number of sales on the Epic store vs Steam.
So in the end is it worth angering your entire player base and fans for only a smaller portion of revenue? That's a question for you to decide.
There is already so much universal hate for Epic that when a dev decides to use the Epic game store they get review bombed for any previous game they released on Steam and they might have their reputation potentially ruined.
We get it developers want to make money and that's great, But when you decide to move to a highly inferior platform, you run the large risk of angering your most loyal and closest fanbase, This puts any future title you make and release in a rocky area. You run the potential of bankrupting your studio because you may or may not make enough money from game sales to keep your company afloat. The overwhelming negative feedback for the Epic game store should already be a large red flag not to move to Epics storefront.
It all comes down to 2 choices. Either you go to the Epic store and run the large risk of ruining your reputation and scaring your fanbase or release on a platform like steam and have positive feedback and its more users to be interested in your game.
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