How does patientgamers feel about free games on Epic?

I end up claiming the games and never playing them. I wish they'd be more customer friendly, they're swimming in money (fortnite + unreal royalties) but couldn't for their lives surpass the very low quality bar of Origin or even UPlay!

I have never installed Epic Games Launcher and still claim and play their games for free. It's pretty easy:

claim games on epicgames.com (I use my phone)
install Heroic and login to your epic games account
play your claimed games

I play on my Steam Deck and on my Linux desktop, and EGS isn't supported on either. Seems to work fine.

You can claim directly from Heroic btw, just go to "Stores"
- I usually claim Thursday mornings at work so I don't forget, and it takes like 30s. But it's pretty cool that it works in Heroic as well.
Also works for prime games. And if you are on Linux especially GOG as well.
Hell yeah! I did not know this was an option. Thanks for the tip!
I'm still on Windows for now, so I use a PortableApps installation to claim the games instead of a phone. I do the same for my wife and kid too. Neither of them has the Epic installer 🤷🏻‍♂️😁

Free is free. If they're making a bunch of money off ten year-olds and their moms, I'll take their giveaways. If I get something free from Epic and I really like it, I'll buy it on gog too.

Same, but on GOG or Steam.

I have never paid a dime on EGS, nor do I plan to. I have purchased games I got for free from EGS on other stores, so there's that.
I wish GOG would get on the Linux train a bit more.

Iirc, they're the least profitable of the three big stores, so I understand that it might be difficult to devote the resources needed, but given that they have Linux versions of some games, it would be nice if they'd make a flatpak of Galaxy (or maybe they should just give their Galaxy dev budget to Heroic).

I got pretty much the same opinion as you, probably a bit angrier about all the shit they did, with Unreal Tournament, their store and spyware and exclusives, and their unoptimized bloated game engine taking over the industry.

So no, I guess I don't claim those games or have an account. I already have a million games I'll never finish playing on Steam and emulators anyway.

But what's a million more?

I've claimed most of the free games, but only played a few, and I've certainly repurchased some that I have claimed on EGS. I've never installed their client (I play through Heroic) and never purchased anything. It takes about 30s to claim on my phone, so I claim on the toilet each Thursday.

I like to think I'm costing EGS more money than by not doing this.

I'm over the politics of game launchers. Like, a free game is a free game, some devs/publishers probably get paid to get their game released for free. I've taken advantage of them, I wish I hadn't deleted one of my Epic games accounts before where I nearly had gotten every game that I actually had wanted that was given away for free. But I was naive because I got caught up in the stupid pissing contest between Steam fanboys and Epic fanboys.

Ultimately, it doesn't matter. Free is free. I would rather a free whole game, than a freemium game, which is all that Steam mostly offers.

There's epic fanboys?
- Yeah, they really like the 12% fee to devs, and think Sweeney is benevolent for suing Google and Apple.
  
  I'm not a Steam fanboy, but they've done right by me in supporting Linux, so they get most of my gaming money. I didn't have a Steam account until they supported Linux, and I used to give Humble most of my gaming money back when they were independent and actually had interesting indie bundles. I would consider switching to GOG or EGS if they committed to supporting Linux like Steam has.
  
  If Steam changes their policies, I'll stop buying from them. Simple as. But for now they're making my gaming experience better, so I'll continue buying from them. I'm easy to please, if you provide a good service that I want that supports my platform, I'll give you money, and I'll ignore a lot of other bad stuff you do (e.g. MTX in Valve games I don't play anyway).

I have epic only on my steam deck and refuse to install it on my main pc

I claim the free stuff. I don't really understand all the hate they get. It's just another digital software storefront for gaming. It seems to do its job. Click a button, download the game, play the game. I have no reason to be mad at them.

For me, its their utter disdain for Linux, my primary gaming platform. Their client doesn't support Linux, games that have Linux builds on Steam or GOG don't on EGS, they refuse to make Fortnite compatible with Proton (Windows compatibility layer) despite saying how easy it is to support Linux with their anticheat, and public statements by the CEO about how they hate Linux.

I also don't like the exclusivity agreements, even if the initial exclusivity window doesn't affect me. I bought Rocket League on Steam, and now I can't play it there anymore (online at least) because they made it EGS exclusive. I could've asked for a refund, but I got my value from it and got it in a bundle anyway (was technically "free" with purchase of the Steam controller/Link), but it still rubbed me the wrong way.

Steam actively supports my platform, and GOG makes Linux builds available (and even provides Linux-native packages for old DOS games). Why would I give EGS any of my money? I'll claim their free games and play on Heroic as long as that works, but I'm not going any further than that.
A big reason people dislike Epic is due to their forced-exclusivity on a lot of games. A popular, highly-anticipated game will only release the PC version on Epic for the first several months, and then it'll appear on Steam and other platforms, forcing fans to either wait or sign up for a new platform that they didn't want anything to do with.

And it's just one more piece of spyware on your computer to serve as a possible vector of attack from hackers.
- This is c/patientgamers, so I assume that first reason wouldn't bother most of us here. I'm curious about the spyware assertion though. Were they caught doing something shady?

Same, I grew up on Unreal and Epic sucks now so I don't install their shit. They really shit on Linux while Valve has invested big time, so I don't install epic game store. I don't have a windows install anymore.

I claim whatever I can, and that still doesn't force me to play it or install their launcher to claim them.

If it’s free, it doesn’t hurt to grab it.

But in general, I don’t like to play through Epic anymore. The Expanse Telltale game was the last straw for me. It was an Epic exclusive for a bit. I mostly play through Steam link on different devices, and adding the Expanse as a non-Steam game would only let you play the first chapter. Nah, I’m out.

...really? Are you sure you didn't just only get the first episode for free? Some of those kinds of story games were released like that. That seems above and beyond Epic's usual shit.
- The license is tied to playing it through the Epic store. Tried it both ways. Plays all the episodes fine playing through Epic. Only lets you play the first episode as a non-Steam game startup, even using the epic launcher as the executable.
  
  But I play mostly on Steam link, so that doesn’t work for me. Luckily it finally came out in Steam. But that’s my last purchase from them.

Free games are good. Have been using Heroic launcher in Linux. Free or not, I'm still waiting for the time to be right.

Like other commenters I take advantage of them but only if I can do so on my terms: on Linux or the Steam Deck using Heroic or a similar solution. There is absolutely no way I'd use Windows or the Epic launcher for this.

And since these methods are not officially supported and could break in the future I can't spend money at the Epic store. I only leech on the free stuff while it's practical to do so.

Exactly.

If EGS pulled a 180 and officially supported Linux, maybe I'd change my position, but for now I'll play whatever works on Linux through Heroic and leave it at that.

Heroic launcher. This is what you need, my friend.

I wonder if Epic and Gog would generate a ground-swell of support if they simultaneously announced official support for Heroic. Or even official cross-launcher support though I think Heroic would be a better long term bet.
- GOG sort of has, the developer gets a cut of purchases made through Heroic. That's almost enough for me to start buying from them, but I'd really like a blog post with official support, and perhaps a grant from GOG.
  
  If that happens, I'll buy a bunch of GOG games. Until then, I'll buy from Steam.
  
  No tux, no bux. If you support tux, you get bux. It's simple.

I love it. I don't find it a big deal to have installed their launcher. I run it to redeem or play a game, and kill the process (not just close the window) when I'm done.

I always get them but expect them to disappear.

I'll claim it online. Then pirate it.

I'll just avoid using the epic launcher and I appreciate heroic launcher but I still don't like it.

I feel good. Who doesn't like free games?

It also makes me sad that Epig Games has fallen so far. I grew up on Unreal Tournament and now I don’t want them anywhere near my computer.

Pretty much this.

I only actively seek games I want to play. I have negative desire to hoard games I know I will never open. I probably wouldn't take the clutter even if they paid me to take it. Steam or Epic.

My Steam library is caked up with a bunch of decade old Humble Bundle packing peanuts and frankly I kind of wish it wasn't.

On the rare chance a game I've been wanting to play is the free givaway, I might take it if it's on Steam just because I'm already invested in that platform. If Epic was the one giving it away I probably wouldn't bother. I don't need my games library splintered across multiple launchers. I'm already annoyed at having the one. I'd prefer no launcher at all.

I claim everything since free is free. But I don't have the launcher installed, since I have a lot of other games to play so haven't gotten around to it.

It's almost stopped me buying ANY games, at all.

At some point within a year or few of a release the odds of anything I find interesting showing up for free on epic is damn near 100%.

It's the ultimate patient gamers bit: wait 2 or 3 years and that game you want will be $0.

(It's why my epic library is now bigger than my steam library, despite spending $0.)

I'll claim the games if they look interesting but usually someone else has to tell me what's on there because I don't look. I won't buy a game from epic though, so this marketing tactic is lost on me.

Not lost, you boost their active user numbers
- Oh well
- True, but active user count doesn't increase revenue. And I imagine higher active users increases the cost Epic pays for those free games.
  
  So I feel like claiming is a net drain.

I feel pretty awesome, thanks Epic, I love you fondly...

But I suppose that wasn't what you wanted to hear...

Jokes aside why wouldn't someone feel good or cool about it?

The Epic games launcher is trash, you could try with Heroic Games Launcher, it also works on Linux

What’s wrong with Epic Games launcher? I understand that they require some sort of delivery mechanism, even if you don’t use Epic you have to use Heroic or something. Is there something else I should hate?

They have been in hot water before when they were caught scraping data without consent and sending it back to Epic. Folders/files and apparently steam user info?

The client still supposedly phones home with some encrypted data and nobody is completely sure what it is, they say it's anti-cheat stuff, but then there's this:

"40% of Epic Games is owned by Tencent they're a Chinese Tech Company which the Chinese Government has a certain say in what they do. LITERALLY without Tencent Epic would go under they're the only reason why Epic Games has gotten so many exclusives and given away so many free games. There is LITERALLY a board member in Tencent that was appointed by the Chinese Government."

So can we trust them? Probably not.
Some people don't like having to use more than one launcher. Some people don't like Epic buying out games and making them exclusive to EGS (which keeps the price artificially high for longer). Some people just feel like the launcher, er, launched without feature parity with Steam, and has made very few improvements since launch. I'm sure there's more reasons people dislike Epic. I don't overly care but it's certainly not a preferred platform for me.

I have hundreds of free games from there. Haven't played a single one. Maybe this year will be the year, but I doubt it.

Not worth bothering with for me.

I don't see any point in claiming free games from it.

If by any chance one of the games I might ever want to play becomes a freebie, then I would simply browse my backlog rather than forsake my principles.

i've stopped bothering. I saw dredge was free there a little while ago, and that's a game I want to play. Didn't even claim it.

I have claimed most of the games and some have been real gems. I've bought a few games too because they were the cheapest option.

Personally I don't have a problem with the Epic launcher as it's just a launcher which is fine by me. I use GOG Galaxy anyway and I'm not a fan of Steam either so don't care about that aspect.

I really liked Shapez