Tim Sweeney has been quite vocal about the situation regarding the Epic Game Store and the concerns people have about its security, features, and privacy. He went on Twitter recently to discuss various aspects about it when confronted by users including Epic Store Exclusives. We’ll be going over his responses to these by following his tweets.
Epic Store Exclusives and Free Games
If this is news to you that Epic is grabbing a lot of exclusives recently, you haven’t really been paying attention. Many highly anticipated Triple-A games have been announced for Epic Games as timed exclusives, ranging from 6 to 12 months of the exclusivity period. Recent games to join the list of exclusives include Borderlands 3, Control, Outer Worlds and a bunch of Quantic Dream titles.
Apart from that, Epic Game Store offers monthly free games for its users, and Tim Sweeney commented on both the exclusives and free games situation in the tweet below
Yes, Epic is investing heavily to bring free games and exclusives to the store to bring in new gamers and grow the store customer base. Simultaneously we’re building lots of features, but are going full speed ahead on games without waiting. That’s the essence of our strategy.
— Tim Sweeney (@TimSweeneyEpic) April 6, 2019
Essentially what they’re doing is grabbing enough exclusives to gain an audience, and eventually with features added, become a competent gaming client and store.
Older Epic Titles
When asked about their plans about bringing older Epic titles to the Epic Store, Sweeney responded with the following tweet
Making older Epic games available on the Epic Games store is completely logical and something we’re looking into in the background, but this isn’t coming shortly.
— Tim Sweeney (@TimSweeneyEpic) April 6, 2019
It isn’t coming anytime soon, but they are considering it.
Security, Leaks, and Tencent
Many people on gaming forums and Reddit have accused Epic to share their user data with Tencent, one of the biggest gaming companies in the world. Sweeney replied with the following tweet regarding this accusation
Tencent has no access to customer data. The Terms of Service references data shared between Epic’s wholly owned international subsidiaries (which exist to process purchases and pay tax around the world). Tencent is an investor only and is not covered by that language.
— Tim Sweeney (@TimSweeneyEpic) April 10, 2019
He further explained the situation regarding the public data in the following tweet
Investors have access to Epic’s financial statements. For an example what’s in a company’s financial statement, look up EA’s financial statement online (it’s publicly available). Investors do not have access to Epic customer data.
— Tim Sweeney (@TimSweeneyEpic) April 10, 2019
When asked about the “security breach” into the store, that supposedly leaked user data, Sweeney assured that there was nothing of the sort
Epic Games login data has not been leaked. Rather, hackers use databases of email address and password combinations that were leaked from other sites, and attempt to login to Epic and other services using the same credentials. (Always use a unique password everywhere.)
— Tim Sweeney (@TimSweeneyEpic) April 7, 2019
He explained how using the same credentials on various platforms led to this issue.
Supporting Indie Developers
Sweeney assured that Indie developers will be given more support in this year
Later in 2019, sorry we can’t move faster!
— Tim Sweeney (@TimSweeneyEpic) April 9, 2019
What do you think about Sweeney’s responses when asked about the various doubts and issues people have with Epic’s client? Let us know in the comments below and share your thoughts.