https://www.epicgames.com every two weeks or so for a long time they've given out different free games, sometimes multiple games. They have a event going on right now, a free game every day for 12days (drawing closer to the end I think) Right now it's Faster Than Light! A rather cheap game on sale for $2.5 but it seems to be well liked.

I've forgotten about them multiple times and probably have missed many free games but I still have a number of them.
I've never actually used them because I'm having drive space issues and more importantly trying to figure out how to install their client necessary for the games on a LInux machine. I am told it's possible.

When Epic games first came out I found multiple articles worried that Epic Games was going to sweep Steam away (sorry, GoG didn't rate to be mention in most of these) due to their near monopoly on 3d game engines (sell only with us and get a discount on our engine!) But as it is, I got to wonder how they even stay profitable to keep their site up.

Free games for sure makes people interested in them. But the prices on all their other games gets nowhere close to competitive with Steam, Gog, or even disks in store or off Amazon or Ebay. And their annoying sale that takes off $10 but only if it's over 15, meaning you can't sort by price or anything or have any games too cheap (still no games under $5 unlike GoG or Steam)

Gog has DRM and client free running. Steam has easy Linux compatibility they have directly invested in to the benefit of all games, even Gog games. Both massively undercut Epic games pricing (aside from free games) So why should anyone buy from them? Just get their free games and buy nothing from them I guess, great business model.[/sarcasm] I hope they stay up long enough for me to play some of the free games I've got from them.

Many games on Epic are DRM free as well, Celeste is even portable!

About the business model, I don't care since I hold none of they shares.

It's called the Fortnite money train. =/ I kind of wonder how much they actually make from engine licensing in comparison.

DRM free but requiring client? Passing curiosity but also again relevant to whether games with them will still be available if the site were to shut down. Probably no contest, Engine licensing by a land slide. But not all business is straightforward. For example, perhaps they try and leverage their game selling site to get more fees from their engine licensing. Thus they may be willing to operate at a loss if it means more money elsewhere.

Maybe that's why they sell their games for so much, because it's not about actual game sales, having higher prices might help with their marketing to AA and AAA gaming companies.

I install Epic launcher on a old laptop, you can install it on another partition on even a Virtual Machine.

I think they're just massively investing in market share - via freebies and exclusives buy-outs (paying devs the losses of not releasing on Steam). And it's not just Fortnite money they're burning, but also Tencent behind it - a billion of potential customers. Chinese think long term and are all about slowly gaining the upper hand.

"Both massively undercut Epic games pricing (aside from free games) "

Did you miss the -10€ repeatable coupons for anything above 14,99€ (using euro but likely scaled for other countries devises) this Winter sale on Epic...? This can't be beat, you can currently purchase plenty Ubisoft games and others for as low as 4,99€.

This summer there was the same offer, though instead the coupon was already applied on the shop pricing for most games above 14,99€.

Personally I am looking for exclusives in specific stores for a reason to buy there, I picked Walking Dead Definitive Collection (14,99€ with coupon) this sale though such coupons offers are so good, I did buy Vampyr for the historical low of 6,99€!

This year Winter Sales on major online stores, Origin is lacking as usual (never seen a good sale for Mass
Effect 2 & 3 DLC bundles), Uplay is alright with 20% coupon but applies once and on higher base prices, Steam is really, really disappointing in comparison with a laughable -5€ coupon for 5000 earned points in their event (...) , GOG scored Blade Runner fantastic release this Christmas sale and shows attractive prices, and seriously Epic is killing it with these coupons, though lacking the library and yeah, shopping & client features.

I would not worry for Epic business seeing the Fortnite machine they may very well offer free games again next year.

Damn it... I missed Celeste a second time. Maybe i am not destined to get it, after all; i rest my case.

But if they giveaway The Messenger again, i have to know! Please shout, if The Messenger goes free again!

It's pretty standard business model (even drug dealers use it) to give out free samples and lure the customer in and then once they are in, you increase the price or you try to make it back on quantity of sales by the increased customer base. Many businesses do this with the first one on the house model.

But if one day that Fortnite money runs out - -well.......

They have a few great exclusives (Control, Phoenix Point) that I'm interested in + those games are DRM free.
I might've bought them... if I didn't have a such huge backlog. Now I'm just waiting to see if they come to GOG after the exclusivity period.

Well, I suppose if that tickles your fancy ( free games) but I won't chase them as I can pay through the nose if I want them or visit TPB and frankly I don't care what you all think of that:)

Their business model is pretty clear: throw millions of dollars and the kitchen sink into undercutting their competition (GOG and Steam) enough so as to create a user/customer base of their own, then compensate for these losses later on through the same suckers who signed up for just their freebies. The problem with this model however is that the people who actually have the money to spend won't waste their time signing up for a clearly subpar service, nor would they be willing to bloat their system with a subpar client software, just in order to get their hands on a few freebies. The sooner they fail the better but hopefully game developers/publishers will get some money out of them before they run themselves to the ground! Actually, on a second thought, it wouldn't be all that bad if they took a piece of the market share from Steam, just as long as GOG doesn't suffer. In that case, we could end up with three equally large platforms on the market but only one that's DRM-free - and that would benefit GOG and the DRM-free movement in the long term!

What does this have to do with DRM free but requiring client? What benefit is there to installing on another partition?


What specific issues have you heard of there being with Epic's game launcher? Does anyone have any definite resources they could link me to in this regard? If it's just a matter of their client using resources inefficiently, someone with a decent enough system/using old enough/not demanding enough games won't mind. And then you just turn off the client at the end.

Much like CBS All Access, I doubt this is useful for customer retention, which is far more important than pure numbers.

No specific issue at all (don't know much about it), just a general one: I abhor the requirement to install an additional launcher for a few free games on the side. One launcher for me (GOG) is more than enough! But I'm sure that there are many out there who don't mind installing and keeping track of several launchers on their system. For my part, I'd rather pay for the games not to have to install several launchers...