Is Epic Games Store Safe to Use?

Whether you’re a hardcore gamer, or simply causally picking up a round or two of Fortnite once in a while, you’ve probably heard about Epic Games Store and how generally hated it is. Despite a negative backlash from the gaming community, Epic Game Store as a platform is growing, mostly by enticing new users with free games every week, but it’s growing nonetheless. If you’re considering installing (and using) Epic Games Store, you might wonder whether it’s safe to use. Today’s post will cover exactly that and some other issues connected to Epic Games store, but let’s start with the basics, is Epic Games Store safe to use?

Epic Games Store is absolutely safe to use, in fact, its user data has never been leaked or compromised, unlike some other digital storefronts. All controversy regarding Epic Games Store has nothing to do with its security it mostly revolves around shifty business practices and the store’s general lack of features. 

Now, Epic Games Store is safe to use we’ve covered that, if you’re still having doubts about whether you should be using it, I recommend you keep reading this article. Let’s go. 

Why do people hate Epic Games Store? 

Epic Games Store is mostly “hated” by the gaming community due to its lack of features, exclusivity deals, and the fact that Chinese giant Tencent has a large stake in its ownership. And most of those concerns are truly valid. Some users are avoiding the Epic Games store due to moral reasons and some are avoiding it due to technical reasons. 

Epic Games Store it’s supposed to rival Valve’s Steam. And in theory that does not sound like a bad idea at all. A healthy dose of competition is good for consumers. But, is that really the case when it comes to Epic Game Store? 

The storefront so far lacks several big features that Valve’s Steam has. I mean, I couldn’t help but notice that the “search” function is barely working. Epic Games Store lacks achievements, workshops, forums, and review boards. Which makes it truly a bare-bones type of storefront. Which is fine, I guess if you don’t use many features that Steam has anyway. But that’s not all. 

PC has managed to stay relatively exclusivity-free when it comes to games it was mostly, in the past, a “console thing” that PC gamers didn’t have to bother with. But, Epic Game Store turned exclusivity deals into their business strategy by offering better deals to developers, especially if they’re using Epic’s own Unreal Engine to develop their games. 

The last big reason is the fact that Epic is around 40% owned by Tencent. And some consumers are worried about their data being compromised and sold to third parties that have nothing to do with gaming and marketing whatsoever. 

When everything gets summarized all of the above are valid concerns and it’s easy to see how someone would rather pass on the free weekly games and spend a little more at Steam for example.

Is Epic Games Store better than Steam? 

If we’re looking at the strictly technical side of both storefronts, Epic Games Store is not better than Steam, It’s not even close. Some of Steam’s features are invaluable to a large chunk of the gaming community.

And at this point, Epic Games Store is in large part bare-bones. And while Epic does plan to incorporate more features in the future, they never plan on implementing a “community hub” in its storefront since they are already quite active on social media and they prefer to leave discussions about their products there. Epic Games Store will never be “Steam”, at least if we look at it from a community aspect.

Is Epic Games Store spyware? 

Epic Games Store is not spyware in the traditional sense, it’s not malicious in any way, but the launcher itself definitely collects your data in order to “improve their service”. Whether you will define this as spyware it’s up to you.

Is Epic free to download? 

Epic games are completely free, and they offer free weekly games ranging from triple-A older titles to new indie releases. It’s part of their business strategy and so far it’s mostly working even if they are operating at a loss. 

To summarize everything, while Epic Games Store is completely safe to use, using it is still considered avoided due to numerous problems associated with the platform. Most people that use Epic Games Store do so due to free games and because of the exclusivity deals and some selected games not being available anywhere else.

It’s still a very “featureless” storefront with dubious business practices and even more suspicious ownership. But people like getting free stuff and generally want to save up on hobbies as much as they can and games are generally cheaper than you will find anywhere else.