The catch is now you have games in their ecosystem and are more likely to spend more time and money there.
this post was submitted on 11 Jun 2025
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They want you to use their service. You're more likely to use the service if you already have a library of games on it.
What will the developers of the games get as a thank you?
They wouldn't be making them free without making a deal with the developer first. There was a leak that showed the actual amount a while back.
They wouldn’t be making them free without making a deal with the developer first. There was a leak that showed the actual amount a while back.
That is what I was after! Not the leak, but the catch. Do you have the link to the source for the leak?
The catch is downloading the Epic Launcher. Or not even that if you are on Linux.
heroic launcher works well as a replacement if you must. it works like steam in that it has built in proton to run the games you have with one click ease.
so if you want to run linux but have games on epic? there are better choices but you're still covered.
"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.
Epic claims it increases sales (much in the same way that pirates do) but I suspect it's just to get people past the very high barrier of creating an account and installing their (presumably) ad-ridden and data-collecting (they're owned by Tencent) launcher.
The former doesn't make much sense to me given they could just buy those games on Steam anyway and have a much better experience.
they’re owned by Tencent
About 35%
Tim Sweeney himself owns 41%
Tencent owns a substantial portion of the company, and therefore has substantial access and influence. Nitpicking about the percentages is irrelevant.
make bad platform give free games ??? profit
Logistically, it's super cheap marketing. Epic pays the dev a reasonable pittance ( assuming it's not a free game, they do that too) you got to watch their ads during download/install, they got you email, they know what games you're interested in. Your interests are for sale for sure, but for a free game, may be worth a throw away email.
Of course they want to lure you in, but honestly I never bought anything there despite catching the free games regularly. Setting up the account doesn't require much personal information and you can just use tools like Heroic instead of their app.