Talk:Epic Games Store

Tag explanation requested

@Calton: you are going to need to elaborate why you think the advert and the notability tags are merited.

On the notability tag, we have several secondary, independent sources going in-depth about the store and how they believe it will be disruptive. GNG is clearly passed.

On the advert, this is effectively a product and I agree that we would need to avoid writing it like a promo, but the article's structure clearly talks about the store as a new digital marketplace that is competing with Steam. It hasn't been around long enough to general more discussion (is it successful or not, etc.) but what's there doesn't read as an advert to me. --Masem (t) 15:12, 11 January 2019 (UTC)

Masem, both tags were obviously placed incorrectly here, so I removed them. Lordtobi (✉) 12:44, 13 January 2019 (UTC)

Epic Games Launcher should be in history

Before the Epic Games Store, there was the Epic Games Launcher, which only launched Epic's products such as Fortnite and Unreal Tournament. This probably deserves a paragraph in the history section. Does anyone have any information about this? When did Epic Games create their launcher? Etc. Aaronfranke (talk) 08:28, 30 January 2019 (UTC)

I remember installing it to get the free game they offered on 2015. https://www.pcgamer.com/shadow-complex-remastered-is-available-now-and-free/

List of Games that have been given by Epic Games Store

Would including this list be good for the page? Chris (talk) 13:37, 22 February 2019 (UTC)

Generally no, since no one can take advantage of the free offer after the games are gone. If there was clear evidence of benefit by listed as free for two or more of the games, then we might consider it, presuming the same benefits go to those other games. --Masem (t) 14:21, 22 February 2019 (UTC)

Number of games on the Epic Games Store?

Can we list the number of games available on the Epic Games Store? It would be a fairly useful statistic. Aaronfranke (talk) 20:35, 7 March 2019 (UTC)

Addition of Controversies Section

Between the aggressive pursuit of exclusive deals (like Metro: Exodus) and the developing steam data snooping scandal, it might be in order to have a section for said controversies and others, moreso since it seems likely there will be more in the future. CommissarPat (talk) 07:05, 16 March 2019 (UTC)

Not sure if they are controversies, but There is stuff about metro exodus and Phoenix point now under Reactions. --Masem (t) 13:54, 16 March 2019 (UTC)

Is this article being checked for promotion?

Opening line in the main section is "Prior to the Epic Games Store, the principal digital distribution channel for personal computer games was Valve's Steam", which implies EGS has overtaken Steam, which is close to laughable. Now, EGS is hardly a fly-by-night company, but it's closer to that than it is the behemoth which is Steam. The article clearly needs a rewrite before the drama that is enveloping reddit with the latest anti-consumer push from EGS, comes over here. 213.40.55.89 (talk) 14:28, 21 March 2019 (UTC)

Removed that line because it wasn't in citation given, and came off fairly POV by using past tense for other competitors and Steam. ShimonChai (talk) 20:16, 22 March 2019 (UTC)

It's not a POV statement. Smply that prior to Epic's store, the biggest channel was valve. Valve still is the biggest channel, but was discussed by articles, it is the storefront Epic is competing and challenging. --Masem (t) 20:29, 22 March 2019 (UTC)

@ShimonChai and Masem: Is there a chance the line "Therefore, they felt obligated to Steam release despite Epic Games Store being a possibly better option in many respects" might also be a case of suggesting both promotion and POV within the section?. I've followed both sources given in that paragraph (gamesindustry & arstechnica) and that phrase was not mentioned. All I could find when searching that phrase, even shortening it, leads to wikiwand and other sites (some quite questionable, but I digress), where they copied the wording in this original article. Additionally, when searching '"Unfold Games" "better option"' there IS one mention of a user within a Resetera thread who said something along those lines, but the user isn't related to Unfold games in any way. Seems to be pure coincidence that comment was made in Aug 17 2019 while the first edit in here to include that line I'm questioning was made at 16:27, 26 August 2019. Sorry if pinging you is bad etiquette or something, this is my first time ever trying this out in Wikipedia (despite my dynamic ip showing an edit from an article I have zero interest in), but I'd like to hear your takes on that. Hopefully I got the syntaxis right.--179.51.239.160 (talk) 10:04, 15 October 2021 (UTC)

I reworded that phrase to talk about a reason being the number of steam wishlist (which is in those sources). I think the old wording is a reasonable paraphrasing but can see why it seems too far away. --Masem (t) 12:58, 15 October 2021 (UTC)

@Masem: Here is the original source by Unfold Games. It goes a bit more in depth with what happened. I think there's no point in also providing links to that reddit AMA post since he did so on Medium, so people interested can follow up on it if they so wish, but maybe providing a link here in the wiki to the Medium post could be helpful for neutrality's sake? In any case, thanks for your time.--179.51.239.160 (talk) 23:52, 15 October 2021 (UTC)

Seems Masem, Wikipedia Admin, has put it back in, continues to spruik for Epic, and has locked the article down. Masem needs a serious look into for bias. I will re-iterate that Steam still dominates, despite the past tense that has been locked into the article. 103.217.166.56 (talk) 06:13, 19 April 2019 (UTC)

Hyperbole in Reception section

As I am reading the last paragraph, I am noticing a lot of hyperbole that seems like it is intended to defend positions rather than explain events. In particular, the comment " coupled with the general distrust and xenophobia among Western video game players of Chinese players" seems unnecessary and accusatory. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Lignoba (talk • contribs) 20:02, 5 April 2019 (UTC)

But that's what we have from two RSes (USGamer and Polygon). I do realize that we should say "some Western video game players" to avoid the class as a whole, but that's otherwise a neutral statement. --Masem (t) 20:05, 5 April 2019 (UTC)

Only the USGamer source has a reference to xenophobia. It makes this claim by referencing a single tweet which expresses a dislike of specifically the Chinese Socialist Party. First, is a dislike of a political or government organization considered xenophobic, as USGamer implies? Second, is a single tweet, whitch at the time of USGamer's article had no likes or retweets, considered an accurate representation of any group of western gamers? This tweet seems like an unreliable source to draw conclusion from. If so should we keep this statement in this article? (I'm relatively new to Wikipedia editing, let me know if this is the wrong place to discuss source legitimacy) ~the.one.and.the.only~ (talk) 23:31, 5 May 2019 (UTC)

The article takes two Tweets as an example, its sources obviously reach further. Both USgamer and the adjacent Polygon source talk about the sentiment that everything connected to China in any way (even if not majority-owned, like is thecase here) is ceding data and money to its government, using that as an excuse to not to use the store. That pretty much is xenophobia. Meanwhile, millions and millions of players play and pay in League of Legends, which is literally 100% owned by Tencent. Lordtobi (✉) 05:56, 6 May 2019 (UTC)

Beyond hyperbole, it's clear political bias. Anyone with an opinion critical of Epic Games is a xenophobic Westerner, and all concerns are unwarranted and paranoid despite Tencent owning nearly 50% of Epic and being based in what is obviously the largest and most aggressive totalitarian state in history. Typical dissent suppression tactics used by PRC agents and collaborators. This has no place in Wikipedia as a place of knowledge. Also, the only source for "Tencent has no input" is Sweeney. One can't seriously take that as a source, not in any remotely sane universe. Has there been any impartial investigation of the relationship? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 1.171.45.13 (talk • contribs)

It is not WP's to beg those questions, we can only report what reliable sources say. --Masem (t) 05:12, 10 April 2019 (UTC)

It is absolute nonsense that you would say an opinion piece in a gaming blog is more of a reputable source than the intelligence agencies of countries like the USA, Australia and Britain. Not only does Tencent open their data to the government, it actively censors content. The UK has a fulltime institution dedicated to preventing malware in their Chinese hardware. Chinese companies around the world have been banned from security sensitive industries because they hand data to the Chinese Communist Party. Part of the reasoning for the current US-China trade war is because of the demands of the CCP to countries trying to enter the Chiense market to hand over sensitive technology and provide back doors to spy on users. China literally has SkyNet and Chinese citizens accept the fact the government watches everything they do, but some random internet blogger said it was racist to point this out so now everyone is racist. Mind-blowing nonsense. 103.217.166.56 (talk) 06:03, 19 April 2019 (UTC)

And that matters to Epic how? Tencent has ownership of part of Epic, but that doesn't mean they run Epic, so all those criticisms about Tencent have zero relevance to Epic unless one has a source showing Epic works with the Chinese govt. Otherwise this is all conspiracy theory. --Masem (t) 08:03, 19 April 2019 (UTC)

I have removed the relevant lines. Opinion pieces are not reliable sources for "people who dislike EGS suffer from sinophobia". Jtrainor (talk) 19:07, 11 December 2019 (UTC)

Reaction Section Suggestions

"Due to the nature of oversight that the Chinese government has with products released in that country, Tencent has to maintain a close relationship with the government."
This sentence seems superfluous in my opinion (all countries have the ability to exert control over the businesses operating within their borders), but as it is also presented as an apparent statement of fact, it should probably at least have a citation of some sort if it's kept around.

Additionally, the phrase "to track streaming media viewership for their Support-A-Creator program" is factually incorrect. A "tracking pixel" like the one described in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epic_Games_Store#cite_note-32 can't even do that. It's more likely being used to track the location the user was linked from or some other data in-scope for the actual launcher, which is different from "streaming viewership."

Would like to suggest editing the final sentence of this section to "Some of the information in the Reddit post reflected initial methods to collect the user's Steam data (making a copy of the local file at launch and transmitting hashed friend id's only after the user opts into importing their Steam friends), but Epic has since adjusted their data access to be more in line with how privacy settings should be handled." as the only portion that has changed is (afaik) that the Steam import no longer makes backups prior to the import. --E Collect (talk) 03:52, 14 April 2019 (UTC)

Draft:List of Epic Games Store free games

The draft for the list of free games was submitted recently. I would like to get more feedback from the video game community on whether this is helpful. The editor HSukePup has compared this to other similar limited-lime list articles that have articles here such as: List of Games with Gold games, List of Instant Game Collection games (PAL region), List of Instant Game Collection games (North America) AngusWOOF (bark • sniff) 06:22, 22 December 2019 (UTC)

There had been a similar list but was deleted by AFD: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of free Epic Games Store games. Doesn't look like this is a direct recreation, but I do not see anything different to distinguish it from the deleted. And those other lists do also need to be deleted for the same reasons as from that AFD. --Masem (t) 06:49, 22 December 2019 (UTC)

Why should Wikipedia maintain a list of old promotions by a website? They let users download an old game for a week. Who cares about it a year later? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Seggallion (talk • contribs) 11:41, 22 December 2019 (UTC)

• • Agreed. ~ Dissident93 ^(talk) 00:25, 23 December 2019 (UTC)

Such lists get asked for all the time on online forums. People like to look up whether a certain game was already given freely at some point in the past for comparison purposes. I personally look up these lists a dozen times a year when I get asked the same question. They are quite useful. Now whether Wikipedia should host a permanent copy of those lists is the question. --HSukePup (talk) 17:46, 24 December 2019 (UTC)

Probably not, as this has little encyclopedic value. Fandom might be a better place for this. Lordtobi (✉) 18:14, 24 December 2019 (UTC)

Clarify what this spyware accusations are about

Sorry, but I disagree about the revertion of my edit.

How are the claims of this reddit-Post not part of "other criticism"? These are the criticism. I especially would like to point out the last sentence:

"Some of the information in the Reddit post reflected initial methods to collect this data, but Epic stated they only used the data for their said features and since adjusted their data access to be more in line with how privacy settings should be handled."

"Some information" = "Steam configuration". "adjusted their data access to be more in line with how privacy settings should be handled" = "Epic asks for permission before reading Steam data"

Why this paraphrasing and not just call it by it's name?

Furthermore I think, the character of this Reddit-Post is in fact relevant. This is no criticism coming from a professional but from an amateur. Some claims make no sense from a technical point of view. Pnhofmann (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 17:42, 5 August 2020 (UTC)

Section regarding Epic giving data to the Chinese government

This section really needs to be removed... while it's true there is controversy surrounding it, there's no basis in reality. 0 factual evidence has surfaced that this is the case, and I feel having it in this article only lends credibility to what is effectively a conspiracy theory. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2604:3D08:9280:4460:88EB:47B4:ECC2:752B (talk) 21:27, 10 February 2022 (UTC)

We are not saying that it is true, only that from RSes, that there are some users that refuse to use EGS because they believe this. --Masem (t) 22:06, 10 February 2022 (UTC)