Like what the title says. There’s always a catch unless it’s FOSS. So, what is the catch with them giving games for free that you can keep forever? What will the developers of the games get as a thank you?
Like what the title says. There’s always a catch unless it’s FOSS. So, what is the catch with them giving games for free that you can keep forever? What will the developers of the games get as a thank you?
"developers see sales increases on both the Epic Games Store and on Steam, Valve’s competing PC game store. Sweeney also points out that the free games can be a good deal for players in developing countries where gaming may be more expensive, meaning that they help expand the global reach of some titles. And since developers get a flat fee from Epic so that Epic can offer their game for free, they make some money no matter what.
Epic isn’t being entirely altruistic, of course. The company spends a lot of money to be able to give games away for free, and it certainly wants to offer good ones that keep people playing on its platform instead of others like Steam. And if Epic can attract players with free games from notable developers, those same players might also try out some of Epic’s big free-to-play multiplayer games like Fortnite or Rocket League, keeping them in Epic’s universe — and, again, off Steam. "
Source: https://www.theverge.com/2023/3/9/23630846/epic-games-store-free-weekly-giveaways-2023
Exactly, Unlike Steam, who does have some popular games, but if I think about it their only free titles are TF2 and Counter Strike and dont care much anymore on developing games, and they are popular, but old. Epic is giving free games, and you might also end up playing Fortnite and get hooked on it. Little by little they might spand their options but thats how they start to grow. The thing that I do find stupind on their part and genius on Steam is the support of linux development and how they made the Steam Deck, just having a device that is very easy to use, replaces a gaming console, and you dont have to spend anything developing anything for it, no games, no software, just their OS and making Proton more compatible, and you have access to the biggest gaming library. Even if their SteamOS is closed sourced, hardware is decent, and you can change OS easily, unlike old game consoles because its just a pc in a gaming case. It changed the gaming industry forever, they might not have been the first to offer this, but they did produce a good product that others take as a standard. If Epic starts to support linux, they would have a much better and secure future, the main problem is that they have to change their gaming engine to think of doing that, and thats hard and they might not want to touch their golden chicken for a while. Steam can make those investments because they have being here a long time and they stabilized their growth venture, Epic is on their first couple growth sprouts and decisions for the future might not be that appealing.