There's not really a good answer other than convenience. Folks view Steam as the benevolent convenient monopoly. They want it to be their store for everything, their launcher for everything, their friends and social networks for all gaming on PC and what not. Epic is behind on feature parity and function, but even if it did have parity, I think gamers still want the convenience of one store/library/friends list.
this post was submitted on 24 Dec 2023
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They're partially owned by Tencent, a big Chinese company. And as Chinese companies are, the government has direct influence over them. And while Tencent is not a majority owner, Tim Sweeney happily took Chinese money and now pays his co-owner a portion of the profits which then go to pay for Chinese gulags.
There are many things, especially hardware, where it's impossible to avoid Chinese companies but simply buying games somewhere else is super easy. It's obviously not a perfect system because even on GOG there are games using UE, but just buying games somewhere else is such a low barrier, it's not an inconvenience at all.
That said, claiming the free games doesn't help them. It helps the developers making those games because Epic has to pay them and won't get anything in return if that doesn't result in users leaving money in EGS for other things.
Steam and GOG are simply better platforms overall. If you really care about being DRM free and owning your games you go GOG route, otherwise Steam is the king. Epic does not even have a review system.
Epic however is the best source of free games on PC. A lot of the latest games I have played have been from Epic giveaways. Right now they have Outer Worlds and yesterday it was Ghostwire: Tokyo, both of these games I played few months ago after purchasing them through Humble Bundle.
Will I ever buy a game on Epic? Probably not, I prefer Steam, but those that simply refuse to redeem freebies and install their launcher while shouting things like it being spyware are weird.
Pure speculation: of the people who don't like Epic, maybe 25% are legitimate, principled objections to their business practices. The rest are split evenly between people who just want to manage their entire library on a single platform, and folks just going along for the hate-ride because it seems like the "safe" position to take.
From a technical stance, Steam and GOG are superior platforms (for different reasons). For equal-price purchases, I can't think of a single reason to choose Epic over other options. But claiming a game for free? That doesn't make anyone a bad person.
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Nothing really. Just pick whichever platform is cheapest/where your friends.
It's just another competitor in the games marketplace. Some people like it, some people don't. It's the same as with any other brand/item.