History Creator / EpicGames

In Early 2019, Epic drew ire from consumers for making a hard push to secure several third party games as exclusives for the Epic Store. The deal with Epic entailed that games had to be exclusive to Epic Games Store for a certain period before going to other digital storefronts. The controversy mostly stemmed from several of these games having already had pre-order sales on other PC stores like Steam, like ''VideoGame/MetroExodus'' and ''VideoGame/PhoenixPoint''. Consumers were especially angry in the case of the latter game as it had been funded primarily through a Fig crowdfunding campaign and had promised its backers it would be available at launch on both Steam and GOG. The vitriol would only get worse as Epic continued to secure more and more games as Epic Store exclusives, reaching a high boiling point after August 1, 2019 when the two-person indie development team of ''Ooblets'' announced that their game would become a timed exclusive on EGS, [[https://www.businessinsider.com/ooblets-developers-receive-threats-for-epic-games-store-exclusivity-deal-2019-8 which swiftly led to threats of violence and racist abuse against the developers.]]

In Early 2019, Epic drew ire from consumers for making a hard push to secure several third party games as exclusives for the Epic Store. The deal with Epic entailed that games had to be exclusive to Epic Games Store for a certain period before going to other digital storefronts. The controversy mostly stemmed from several of these games having already had pre-order sales on other PC stores like Steam, like ''VideoGame/MetroExodus'' and ''VideoGame/PhoenixPoint''. Consumers were especially angry in the case of the latter game as it had been funded primarily by Kickstarter and had promised its backers it would be available at launch on both Steam and GOG. The vitriol would only get worse as Epic continued to secure more and more games as Epic Store exclusives, reaching a high boiling point after August 1, 2019 when the two-person indie development team of ''Ooblets'' announced that their game would become a timed exclusive on EGS, [[https://www.businessinsider.com/ooblets-developers-receive-threats-for-epic-games-store-exclusivity-deal-2019-8 which swiftly led to threats of violence and racist abuse against the developers.]]

In late 2018, Epic announced that in addition to their existing repertoire of game development, publishing and technology, they would also be expanding into the realm of game distribution with the launch of the Epic Games Store, a UsefulNotes/DigitalDistribution platform similar to the likes of UsefulNotes/{{Steam}} and Website/GogDotCom. The unique advantage of Epic's store is that they will take a mere 12% cut of revenue from game sales, as opposed to the industry standard of 30% for UsefulNotes/DigitalDistribution services. Additionally, licensees of Epic's Unreal Engine 4 would not have to pay any additional royalties to Epic for sales on the store, making the store an even more attractive offer for such games.

In Early 2019, Epic drew ire from consumers for making a hard push to secure several third party games as exclusives for the Epic Store. The deal with Epic entailed that games had to be exclusive to Epic Games Store for a certain period before going to other digital storefronts. The controversy mostly stemmed from several of these games having already had pre-order sales on other PC stores like Steam, like ''VideoGame/MetroExodus'' and ''VideoGame/PhoenixPoint''. Consumers were especially angry in the case of the latter game as it had been funded primarily by Kickstarter and had promised it's backers it would be available at launch on both Steam and GOG. The vitriol would only get worse as Epic continued to secure more and more games as Epic Store exclusives, reaching a high boiling point after August 1, 2019 when the two-person indie development team of ''Ooblets'' announced that their game would become a timed exclusive on EGS, [[https://www.businessinsider.com/ooblets-developers-receive-threats-for-epic-games-store-exclusivity-deal-2019-8 which swiftly led to threats of violence and racist abuse against the developers.]]

* NecessarilyEvil: This is what people see the storefront as. With Valve being the only established storefront in [=PC=] Gaming (Uplay and Origin are essentially [=DRM Schemes=] acting as storefronts that ''also'' goes through Steam, while GOG sells DRM-Free games only, making the audience comparatively niche, with its own launcher, GOG Galaxy, also not being widely used), a lot of people are welcoming of some much-needed competition, even if Epic are using underhanded tactics (like store exclusivity) to achieve this.

* NecessarilyEvil: This is what people see the storefront as. With Valve being the only established storefront in [=PC=] Gaming (Uplay and Origin are essentially [=DRM Schemes=] acting as storefronts that ''also'' goes through Steam), a lot of people are welcoming of some much-needed competition, even if Epic are using underhanded tactics to achieve this.

Epic drew more ire when the Epic Games Store was caught, without an explicit prompt or permission, reading Steam friends data straight from a specific file, rather than making specific requests through Steam's API, meaning it could take more data from Steam than is required for basic functions like syncing users' friends lists. [[https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2019-03-15-epic-responds-to-accusations-its-launcher-accesses-steam-data-without-permission Epic responded]] by admitting that this was a remnant of when they were setting up friends list integration with ''VideoGame/{{Fortnite}}'', and promised to fix this quirk.

** Their Storefront was blatantly unfinished upon release, filled not only with bugs but is also full of security holes and lacking some of the even most basic of features such as a shopping cart.

Epic drew more ire when the Epic Games Store was caught, without an explicit prompt or permission, reading Steam friends data straight from a specific file, rather than making specific requests through Steam's API, meaning it could take more data from Steam than is required for basic functions like syncing users' friends lists. [[https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2019-03-15-epic-responds-to-accusations-its-launcher-accesses-steam-data-without-permission Epic responded]] by admitting that this was a remnant of when they were setting up friends list integration with ''VideoGame/Fortnite'', and promised to fix this quirk.

Epic drew more ire when the Epic Games Store was caught, without explicit prompt or permission, reading Steam data straight from a particular file on the user's computer rather than making specific requests through Steam's API, meaning it could take more data from Steam than is required for basic functions like syncing users' friends lists. After this, Epic promised to rectify the practice.

* ''Silverball Plus 2''

* [2002] ''Unreal Tournament 2003'' {co-developed with Digital Extremes} %% Don't pothole, it's a redirect to VideoGame/UnrealTournament2004 %%

* GameEngine: The ''Unreal Engine'' series. Still quite popular to this day, currently at version 4.19 and counting.

Epic Games is a game developer and publisher, best known for ''VideoGame/{{Unreal}}'', ''VideoGame/GearsOfWar'', ''VideoGame/{{Bulletstorm}}'', and ''VideoGame/{{Fortnite}}'', as well as its most widespread technology, the ''[[GameEngine Unreal Engine]]''.

* [2016] ''Bullet Train'' (playable teaser that would eventually be developed into the above)
* [2019] ''VideoGame/Borderlands3''

* ''VideoGame/FireFight'' {co-developed with with Chaos Works}

In Early 2019, Epic drew ire from consumers for making a hard push to secure several third party games as exclusives for the Epic Store. The deal with Epic entailed that games had to be exclusive to Epic Games Store for a certain period before going to other digital storefronts. The controversy mostly stemmed from several of these games having already had pre-order sales on other PC stores like Steam, like ''VideoGame/MetroExodus'' and ''VideoGame/PhoenixPoint''. Consumers were especially angry in the case of the latter game as it had been funded primarily by Kickstarter and had promised it's backers it would be available at launch on both Steam and GOG. The vitriol would only get worse as Epic continued to secure more and more games as Epic Store exclusives.

* ObviousBeta: Their latest games would find their way as incomplete releases, with Epic themselves releasing A LOT of patches. As of now, the worst offender is ''VideoGame/UnrealTournamentIII'', which had many {{Game Breaking Bug}}s in the GUI before the [[UpdatedRerelease Black Edition]].

Epic drew more ire when the Epic Games Store was caught reading Steam data straight from a particular file on the user's computer rather than making specific requests through Steam's API, meaning it could take more data from Steam than is required for basic functions like syncing users' friends lists. After this, Epic promised to rectify the practice.

In Early 2019, Epic drew ire from consumers for making a hard push to secure several third party games as exclusives for the Epic Store. The deal with Epic entailed that games had to be exclusive to Epic Games Store for a year before going to other digital storefronts. The controversy mostly stemmed from several of these games having already had pre-order sales on other PC stores like Steam, like ''VideoGame/MetroExodus'' and ''VideoGame/PhoenixPoint''. Consumers were especially angry in the case of the latter game as it had been funded primarily by Kickstarter and had promised it's backers it would be available at launch on both Steam and GOG. Epic announced that they would eventually stop this practice once the Epic Games Store was off it's feet.

Epic drew more ire when the Epic Games Store was caught illegally reading and recording private information from users' computers, including Steam data like purchase histories and friends list. After being caught, Epic promised to rectify the practice.

In early 2019 Epic drew ire from consumers for making a hard push to secure several third party games as exclusives for the Epic Store. The controversy mostly stemmed from several of these games having already had pre-order sales on other PC stores like Steam, like ''VideoGame/MetroExodus'' and ''VideoGame/PhoenixPoint''. Consumers were especially angry in the case of the latter game as it had been funded primarily by Kickstarter and had promised it's backers it would be available at launch on both Steam and GOG. The deal with Epic means neither of those storefronts will see Phoenix Rising on their shops for at least a year. Epic then drew more ire when the Epic Games Store was caught illegally reading and recording private information from users' computers, including Steam data like purchase histories and friends list. After being caught, Epic promised to rectify the practice.

In early 2019 Epic drew ire from consumers for making a hard push to secure several third party games as exclusives for the Epic Store. The controversy mostly stemmed from several of these games having already had pre-order sales on other PC stores like Steam, like Metro Exodus and Phoenix Rising. Consumers were especially angry in the case of the latter game as it had been funded primarily by Kickstarter and had promised it's backers it would be available at launch on both Steam and GOG. The deal with Epic means neither of those storefronts will see Phoenix Rising on their shops for at least a year. Epic then drew more ire when the Epic Games Store was caught illegally reading and recording private information from users' computers, including Steam data like purchase histories and friends list. After being caught, Epic promised to rectify the practice.

In early 2019 Epic drew ire from consumers for making a hard push to secure several third party games as exclusives for the Epic Store. The controversy mostly stems from several of these games having already had pre-order sales on other PC stores like Steam, like Metro Exodus and Phoenix Rising. Consumers were especially angry in the case of the latter game as it had been funded primarily by Kickstarter and had promised it's backers it would be available at launch on both Steam and GOG. The deal with Epic means neither of those storefronts will see Phoenix Rising on their shops for at least a year. Epic has also drawn consumer ire on top of these exclusive deals when the Epic Games Store was caught illegally reading and recording private information from users' computers, including Steam data like purchase histories and friends list. After being caught, Epic promised to rectify the practice.

* [2002] ''Unreal Championship'' %% Don't pothole, it's a redirect to VideoGame/UnrealTournament2004 %%

* PromotedFanboy: It became a constant since ''VideoGame/{{Unreal|I}}'' that Epic may pick up members of their community, so they can work with them. There are some examples in the [[VideoGame/{{Unreal}} Unreal page]], most notably ''Make Something Unreal'' contest winners.

* ShoutOut / AuthorAppeal: They seem to be very big fans of ''Film/TheFifthElement'', a possible inspiration for the [[VideoGame/GearsOfWar Gear armor, Gorgon Burst Pistol]], and [[VideoGame/{{Bulletstorm}} Peacemaker Carbine]].

* ''VideoGame/{{Ancients 2 Approaching Evil}}''

!!Tropes related to this company
* AscendedFanfic / PromotedFanboy: It became a constant since ''VideoGame/{{Unreal|I}}'' that Epic may pick up members of their community, so they can work with them. There are some examples in the [[VideoGame/{{Unreal}} Unreal page]], most notably ''Make Something Unreal'' contest winners.
** The whole ''Unreal'' community got this for [[VideoGame/UnrealTournament4 the 2014 reboot of ''Unreal Tournament'']], as a result of Epic co-developing it with the community.

Epic Games is a game developer and publisher, best known for ''VideoGame/{{Unreal}}'', ''VideoGame/GearsOfWar'' and ''VideoGame/{{Bulletstorm}}'', as well as its most widespread technology, the ''[[GameEngine Unreal Engine]]''.

* ''Heartlight''