By Nelson Schneider - 10/01/23 at 03:05 PM CT
Remember when we all got excited about a new digital storefront being run by Epic Games joining the fray on PC? Remember how disappointed we were in the Epic Store not having basic features for YEARS after launch? Remember how nearly anyone you asked about their use of the Epic Store simply said, “I claim the free games every week, but don’t actually buy anything”?
Yeah, all of that has come home to roost, with Epic Games announcing layoffs this week totaling roughly 16% of the company’s staff. Apparently, at Epic, “we’ve been spending more money than we earn.” Is this really a surprise?
The Epic Store proclaimed that it would capture a significant portion of the PC gaming market by offering more generous revenue splits with developers than entrenched competitors like Valve’s Steam or CD Projekt’s GOG. Epic further sweetened the pot by throwing money at studios/publishers who would agree to a temporary exclusivity deal, wherein they would sell a game(s) ONLY through the Epic Store for a period of time, usually around 1 calendar year, before branching out to other digital storefronts. Then there has been the fact that, every Thursday for the last several years, Epic has given away one or more game licenses to any Epic account holder who bothers to take the time to click through the store to claim them.
Yet, when questioned about their dubious finances, Epic spokescritters instead choose to focus on the ongoing legal troubles the company is facing against Big Tech titans like Apple and Google over in-app purchases in mobile games – which the company is trying to color as a heroic, pro-customer, anti-monopoly move. Uh-huh.
Epic absolutely deserves everything bad that happens to them at this point. Instead of being content to build the game engine that underpins nearly every single-A to triple-AAA game released on every modern platform, they decided to meddle with powers they didn’t understand. Between taking investment money from Chinese Communist Party apparatus, TenCent; to transforming their would-be cooperative Tower Defense/Third-Person Shooter hybrid, “Fortnite,” into an addictive Skinner Box to siphon money away from tweens and teens; to their implementation of anti-competitive practices in their storefront – Epic has been the mastermind of one terrible idea after another.
It fills my heart with joy to know that the MJ Crew’s consistent claiming of Epic freebies with little or no actual money spent (*glares at Chris with his Epic “Red Dead Redemption 2” license that he bought for $20*) has combined with the collective efforts of like-minded gamers across the globe to apply a little bit of pain, even though Epic is feeling far more self-inflicted pain from their pursuits in the realm of Corporate Lawyering. If Epic stops offering freebies every week, we won’t really be out anything – considering the dismal quality of the gifts given – and we’ll all be free to stop running their slightly-less-than-half-assed-after-5-years client.
