Epic Games Store Victorious?

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Epic Games Store Victorious?

Epic Game Store has been gathering exclusive deals since it was first being made in 2018 and have only increase its benefits for developers to join their store. Not only that but key publishers have been turning away from their own game clients to join Epic Games Store as well. These include long time independent running companies such as Ubisoft and Sony Interactive Entertainment, two companies renowned for staying to themselves with their exclusives and either being incapable of being cracked or ensuring a rather buggy crack. Sony Interactive Entertainment in particular only uses PlayStation Now for PC ports and even those are not easily cracked or emulated, making them the top tier bought games that cannot be pirated and will keep Sony as a main contender in games, consoles, and game clients.

This is where Epic Games Store comes in and makes exclusivity deals to ensure that they publishers and developers they work with will get the most profit and that Epic Games Store receives big name titles. Not only is Epic Games Store picking up Sony Playstation exclusives but also community popular Indie titles as well from Hades to Satisfactory to Maneater and many more. However, this has caused major backlash in those communities and social media blew up about how vile Epic Games is, attempting to demolish their reputation. Epic Games Store countered with over one hundred free games since it opened, ranging from indie to blockbuster AAA, that has brought a playerbase to its client enough to where it can start being seen as a contender in Epic Game’s forced game client war with Steam.
 

Players vs Epic Games Store vs Pirates

However, there comes the question: Why buy or play on Epic Games Store client? Many anti-Epic Games communities would rather pirate their games as soon as they hit Epic Games Store while the majority who understand and support the developers would buy it. With the amount of games given away and the backlash of joining Epic Games Store, it would seem like it simply would not be worth the social suicide and boycotting, but is that really so? Pirating from Epic Games Store or Steam or any other game client is done every day and only those who truly wish to support the developers or like the game go to buy it. This is where Epic Games Store became Victorious. Either the games that people want are on sale, are given way free, or are exclusive to the client with no cracks such as the Quantic Dream trio and Tom Clancy’s The Division 2. Epic Games Store gets players one way or the other with little room to work around their deals asides from Steam who at most holds heavy sales for the given away games.

By signing deals with AAA companies like Ubisoft and Sony Interactive Entertainment along with providing support for Denuvo. Even though Epic Games DRM protection is not strong and can be cracked, these specific publishers have their own DRM protection that has not been penetrated. Through the use of these DRM protection policies, these games have not been cracked and are the majority of uncracked games on the Epic Games Store. However, there are some outliers such as Manifold Garden published by Chry Studio, Old World published by Mohawk Games, Samurai Shodown published by SNK, and SuperMash published by Digital Continue who use only Epic Games DRM protection and have not been cracked yet either. This could be anywhere from how the developers made the games, lack of interest in the games, or Epic Games DRM protection correctly worked. Though, what makes Epic Games Store stand out to victory is what happened when certain exclusives migrated from their store to Steam.
 

No Longer Exclusive

When the Quantic Dream games, Heavy Rain, Beyond: Two Souls, and Detroit: Become Human were announced to be on the Epic Games Store, they were advertised as Sony Interactive Entertainment Exclusives moving to PC. This was a huge breakthrough since Sony Interactive Entertainment had never released their PlayStation Exclusives games on PC before their Epic Games Store deals. Beforehand, select ones were only available via PlayStation Now or the PlayStation consoles. Both the console and PS Now games having extremely strong DRM protection that no one had been able to crack or emulate as each console increased complexity of code and graphics. However, when the six month exclusivity deal was finished, Quantic Dream went to publish their games on Steam without Sony Interactive Entertainment involved. As soon as the games were released, they were immediately cracked and were open to being pirated. This begs the question: Was it the Game Client or the Publisher?

That is where the following table comes into play that lists Epic Games Store Exclusives, the DRM protection they had, their publisher, release date on Epic Games Store, and the cracked date. When looking at the list, it is plain to see that Epic Games DRM protection did nothing to protect the games, granted that there are the aforementioned outliers. Asides from the outliers, the games that went uncracked either were by Ubisoft, Sony Interactive Entertainment, were part of a company under Sony Interactive Entertainment (Quantic Dream), or had Denuvo. This comes to the conclusion that when the AAA companies entrust Epic Games Store with their games, they will stay exclusive and uncracked for the term of their deal. That means no chance for pirating, a higher rate of profit, and more players coming in to play their games. Meanwhile, unless it has third party or Denuvo, it will be cracked on Steam, to the point where pirates or crackers try to beat their time on cracking the games for the fastest time. The only games that do have a strong protection are those with third party or full online integration without an offline version.
 

Victorious

At the moment, this all means that exclusive deals have succeeded in protecting the games, increasing profits, and increasing playerbase regardless what any backlash says. Begs the question on if Steam will start to do exclusives as well. If it becomes impossible to crack a game and fully necessary to buy it wholesale, then there is no choice but to buy the game on the client it is exclusive on, not even attempt to crack a demo. It is true that majority do not buy the cracked games, but it does show where trust lies and where money is being made in full. With this said, Epic Games Store is Victorious.

 

Epic Games Store Exclusives

Game

DRM Protection

Publisher

Release

Cracked

Afterparty

EpicGames

Night School Studio

October 29, 2019

October 29, 2019

A Knight’s Quest

EpicGames

Curve Digital

October 9, 2019

October 9, 2019

Ancestors: The Humankind Odyssey

EpicGames

Private Division

August 27, 2019

August 28, 2019

Anno 1800

Denuvo + VMProtect

Ubisoft

May 29, 2019

Uncracked

Arise: A Simple Story

EpicGames

Techland

December 3, 2019

December 3, 2019

Ashen

EpicGames

A44

December 7, 2018

December 7, 2018

Bee Simulator

EpicGames

Bigben Interactive

November 14, 2019

November 14, 2019

Before We Leave

EpicGames

Balancing Monkey Games

May 8, 2020

May 14, 2020

Beyond Two Souls

Denuvo

Quantic Dream  / Sony

July 22, 2019

Uncracked*

Bloodroots

EpicGames

Paper Cult

February 27, 2020

February 27, 2020

Borderlands 3

Denuvo

2K

September 32, 2019

October 29, 2019

Cardpocalypse

EpicGames

Versus Evil

September 21, 2019

September 21, 2019

Close to the Sun

EpicGames

Wired Productions

May 2, 2019

May 2, 2019

Control

EpicGames

505 Games

August 26, 2019

August 26, 2019

Corruption 2029

EpicGames

The Bearded Ladies

February 16, 2020

February 16, 2020

Dangerous Driving

N\A

Three Fields Entertainment

April 9, 2019

April 9, 2019

Detroit: Become Human

Denuvo

Quantic Dream  / Sony

December 12, 2019

Uncracked*

Dread Nautical

EpicGames

Zen Studios

April 29, 2020

April 29, 2020

Tom Clancy’s The Division 2

Uplay 5.5

Ubisoft

March 15, 2019

Uncracked

Falcon Age

EpicGames

Outerloop Games

September 6, 2019

September 6, 2019

Foregone (Early Access)

EpicGames

Big Blue Bubble

February 26, 2020

Uncracked

Genesis Alpha One

EpicGames

Team17 Digital Ltd

January 28, 2019

January 30, 2019

Ghost Recon Breakpoint

Uplay/Denuvo

Ubisoft

October 4, 2019

Uncracked

Ghostbusters: The Video Game Remastered

EpicGames

Mad Dog Games

October 4, 2019

October 10, 2019

Huntdown

EpicGames

Coffee Stain Publishing

May 12, 2020

May 14, 2020

John Wick Hex

EpicGames

Good Shepherd Entertainmnet

October 8, 2019

October 8, 2019

Journey to the Savage Planet

EpicGames

505 Games

January 28, 2020

January 28, 2020

Kine

EpicGames

Gwen Frey

October 17, 2019

October 17, 2019

Maneater

Denuvo

Tripwire Interactive

May 22, 2020

Uncracked

Manifold Garden

EpicGames

William Chyr Studio

October 18, 2019

Uncracked

MechWarrior 5: Mercenaries

EpicGames

Pirahna Games

December 10, 2019

December 10, 2019

Old World

EpicGames

Mohawk Games

May 5, 2020

Uncracked

Omen of Sorrow

EpicGames

AOne Games

June 7, 2019

June 20, 2019

The Outer Worlds

EpicGames

Pirate Division

October 25, 2019

October 25, 2019

Overpass

EpicGames

Bigben Interactive

February 27, 2020

February 29, 2020

Phoenix Point

EpicGames

Snapshot Games

December 2, 2019

December 2, 2019

Predator: Hunting Grounds

EpicGames

Sony Interactive Entertainment

April 24, 2020

Uncracked

ReadySet Heroes

EpicGames

Sony Interactive Entertainment

October 30, 2019

Uncracked

Rebel Galaxy Outlaw

EpicGames

Double Damage

August 13, 2019

August 13, 2019

Rune II

EpicGames

Ragnarok Game LLC

November 12, 2019

November 12, 2019

Saints Row: The Third Remastered

EpicGames

Deep Silver

May 22, 2020

May 22, 2020

Samurai Shodown

EpicGames

SNK

June 11, 2020

Uncracked

Shakedown Hawaii

EpicGames

VBlank Entertainment

May 7, 2019

May 8, 2019

Shenmue III

EpicGames

Deep Silver

November 19, 2019

November 19, 2019

The Sinking City

EpicGames

Bigben Interactive

June 27, 2019

June 27, 2019

Sludge Life

EpicGames

Devolver Digital

May 28, 2020

June 4, 2020

SnowRunner

EpicGames

Focus Home Interactive

April 28, 2020

April 28, 2020

The Sojourn

EpicGames

Iceberg Interactive

September 20, 2019

September 20, 2019

Superliminal

EpicGames

Pillow Castle

November 12, 2019

November 12, 2019

SuperMash

EpicGames

Digital Continue

December 9, 2019

Uncracked

Tetris Effect

EpicGames

Enhance, Inc.

July 23, 2019

July 24, 2019

Totally Reliable Delivery Service

EpicGames

tinyBuild

April 1, 2020

April 2, 2020

Untitled Goose Game

EpicGames

Panic

September 20, 2019

September 20, 2019

The Walking Dead: The Telltale Definitive Series

EpicGames

Skybound Games

September 10, 2019

September 10, 2019

Wattam

EpicGames

Annapurna Interactive

December 17, 2019

December 23, 2019

World War Z

EpicGames

Mad Dog Games

April 16, 2019

April 19, 2019

WRC 8

EpicGames

Bigben Interactive

September 5, 2019

September 5, 2019

Yaga

EpicGames

Versus Evil

November 12, 2019

November 12, 2019

Zombie Army 4: Dead War

Denuvo

Rebellion

February 4, 2020

Uncracked

Publisher/ Release Information from https://www.epicgames.com/store/
Cracked Information found from https://crackwatch.com
List of game titles from https://www.gamewatcher.com/news/Epic-games-store-exclusives
* = there was a complicated way with file storage and editing between demo to get full game, but no real full game crack.
Note: free to play games, missing crackwatch games, and games with conflicting data were revoked; list accurate as of June 19, 2020. Also, DRM and release dates were adjusted to match Epic Games Store records.

Replies • 34




Planetary

Taking into consideration that I have spent the last two years encountering malware/spyware/crypto-miners from the trash that is infesting Steam and witnessed Steam going out of its way to silence (censoring) any customer-generated warnings of such malware/spyware/crypto-miners in the customer reviews as being "off-topic review bombing", I am more than willing to give Epic a fair chance to prove itself as being a worthy replacement for Steam. I am not trolling here. I have used scans from McAfee, Norton and Kaspersky to ensure that I am not getting false positives. Three award-winning Internet Security software companies simply can't be wrong. And yet, I have had no problems whatsoever from the games sold on Epic. What does that say about Steam?

Until Steam cleans up it's act and removes the compromised trash from it's store, let Epic reign supreme.



I think that this is just wrong

I mean, Steam was always the main platform on PC, like PSN on Playstation and Live on Xbox, but i don't think moving all exclusives to epic is a good thing
I personally don't like the platform - It doesnt' have achievements, a active community with arts, gifs, screenshots, etc

Steam prretty much is a Social Media of games, far more advanced than Epic.
Also, they even have the Big Picture mode, that makes almost all controllers compatible with PC.

For me it just sucks that those games are exclusves on Epic. I'll not buy them.


Also... There are some games on your lists that are not exclusives.

Beyond Two Souls, Borderlands 3, Control and many others are alrready on Steam
They only came out early on Epic, and then were sold on Steam.

I think you should check the games in your list, since your post is 3days old and is containing misleading information.
Even that one game everyone tought would stay on Epic Store forever - Satisfactory - is already on Steam and righht now it has a 10% discount...


The Chaotic One
HorselessName said:

Also... There are some games on your lists that are not exclusives.

Beyond Two Souls, Borderlands 3, Control and many others are alrready on Steam
They only came out early on Epic, and then were sold on Steam.

I think you should check the games in your list, since your post is 3days old and is containing misleading information.
Even that one game everyone tought would stay on Epic Store forever - Satisfactory - is already on Steam and righht now it has a 10% discount...

Beyond Two Souls and Borderlands 3 had a 6 month exclusivity contract and Control has been exclusive for over 6 months, so they probably went for the one year exclusivity contract. Usually they go with a six month contract and then put on Steam. The exclusivity is mainly for initial release, not full time available. This was why I posted the release dates on Epic Games Store.*

Side note: everyone knew that Satisfactory was coming to Steam before they posted on Epic Games Store. They were smart about it and only put early access on Epic Games Store as an exclusive so that they could hold the store page there and then continue to Steam, so that when it is ready for full release, it would be ready on both game clients without exclusivity.

edited