Well would you look at that, Epic Games is back in the news again, and of course, it’s not for a good reason.
For those that were not aware or didn’t care, Epic has been the subject of a ton of outrage and scorn these last few months. In their attempts to compete against the monopoly of digital distribution held by Valve, Epic has been doing what can best be described as throwing money around. The company has negotiated a ton of exclusives on the Epic Games Store for popular games like Borderlands 3 and Metro Exodus. That alone wouldn’t be so bad, if they also weren’t screwing up in other ways.
Issues with different publishers and low relations with gamers were surprisingly exacerbated by the ongoing Epic Mega Sale. A sale in which Epic offered $10 off of any game priced over $14.99 across the entire storefront. This had some developers and publishers quite nervous, as even though Epic offers a better percentage of revenue split than Valve, a major discount like this negatively affects profits. Scalpers will often snap up many copies of games and then resell them for a profit, something that many companies wanted to avoid. This meant some companies temporarily had their games removed from the Epic Games Store. Both Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines 2 and Oxygen Not Included were taken off the storefront.
But it turns out that the growing pains aren’t over yet, as some people buying games during the sale are finding their accounts being locked for fraud, even when making simple purchases.
Most people are noticing this now thanks to the rage of one Twitch streamer, Patrick Boivin. Fans of the now-defunct Super Best Friends Play channel on YouTube will recognize AngriestPat right away, and it’s no surprise to those paying attention that Epic really screwed up on this one. I’ll just let his own words speak for themselves on this.
So, why would Epic do this? According to a response to Game Revolution from Epic PR, “This was a result of our aggressive fraud rules,” and “If players run into this issue, they should contact player support so we can investigate.”