Epic Store (and other "Occupy Steam" movements)
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@Applied-Mediocrity Maybe I'm missing something, but I see it a bit differently:
it seems to have gotten their attention awfully quick
Why is that a bad thing? Also, these days, it's perhaps safer to respond quickly before it gets posted across the internets and blows up into a twitter-storm or whatever. At that point it's impossible to get any sanity back into the discussion.
the responses have been less than reassuring
Like what? They could explain all of the things in a way that makes sense. I was actually rather reassured.
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@Parody said in Epic Store (and other "Occupy Steam" movements):
They're all probably shady in one way or another (including Steam itself)
Probably.
Besides, anything that includes a good dose of DRM and anti-cheat is going to be all the shades of shady.
Folks already don't like the Epic Store because of the exclusivity deals so it's getting extra scrutiny;
Which is a good thing. But extra scrutiny doesn't help when people cry wolf over non-issues due to cluelessness.
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@Applied-Mediocrity said in Epic Store (and other "Occupy Steam" movements):
@Parody said in Epic Store (and other "Occupy Steam" movements):
@Rhywden said in Epic Store (and other "Occupy Steam" movements):
@Parody Wait, they only recently added a "Search" function? For a store?
They didn't really need one when they only had 5 games on it.
Strange how that doesn't quite mesh with putting (or forgetting not to put) in various data collection features which apparently are important regardless of the number of games
The Epic Store app was repurposed from the Fortnite launcher, so they already had the data collection features. ("Add your Steam Friends to your Fornite ones!")
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@cvi said in Epic Store (and other "Occupy Steam" movements):
Why is that a bad thing? Also, these days, it's perhaps safer to respond quickly before it gets posted across the internets and blows up into a twitter-storm or whatever. At that point it's impossible to get any sanity back into the discussion.
Oh I think it's too late for that already. Especially when there's no clear distinction between just slightly less than militant Steam apologists and those putting forward actually genuine and possibly even informed reasons to dislike Epic. Take me, for instance.
Anyway, the bad thing? Because there would not have been any explanations if it had not been any inquiries in the first place, baseless or otherwise. It is the only logical course of events that anyone to do with customer data will slurp all such data it thinks it can get away with and continuously work towards pushing the line forward. Actually I'm not sure why I'm so surprised. I guess it's a habit I could do well without.
@cvi said in Epic Store (and other "Occupy Steam" movements):
I was actually rather reassured.
So... this is one of those moments where you pretend that you don't know that they're lying?
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@Rhywden said in Epic Store (and other "Occupy Steam" movements):
Any backers who want their games on those platforms will have to wait for a year.
It'd be very amusing if someone were to sue to get (some of) their money back under grounds of not delivering on a promise when it is technically entirely possible for the developers to do it.
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@dkf
Yes, but only if someone like Max Schrems were to turn out having been involved. There's a no questions asked refund process, if an inconvenient one, available to all unsatisfied backers. Apparently the piece of that Fortnite money they've got was a pretty big one, sufficient to cover the past and future development costs without the pitiful contributions of hoi polloi, hmm.
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@Applied-Mediocrity said in Epic Store (and other "Occupy Steam" movements):
Yes, but only if someone like Max Schrems were to turn out having been involved.
I have literally no idea who he is, and my level of give a fuck about it is pegged to zero.
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@Applied-Mediocrity said in Epic Store (and other "Occupy Steam" movements):
those putting forward actually genuine and possibly even informed reasons to dislike Epic. Take me, for instance.
As I already said, I agree with the exclusives thing - that's annoying. I've not seen you putting forward any other informed reason, though.
Anyway, the bad thing? Because there would not have been any explanations if it had not been any inquiries in the first place, baseless or otherwise.
So if I trace Steam or whatever and make a huge reddit post about how it's reading my root certificates and whatnot, that would be very bad for Steam, right? It's probably enumerating my running processes too.
It is the only logical course of events that anyone to do with customer data will slurp all such data it thinks it can get away with and continuously work towards pushing the line forward.
That hardly seems specific to Epic, though.
So... this is one of those moments where you pretend that you don't know that they're lying?
No, because they have at least one person who knows what their program is doing and can form coherent english sentences to explain it.
Also: lying about what? Not collecting your personal data? Have you read their EULA? (I haven't.) But why lie about that when everybody else does it too (and does so with your permission).
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@dkf said in Epic Store (and other "Occupy Steam" movements):
@Rhywden said in Epic Store (and other "Occupy Steam" movements):
Any backers who want their games on those platforms will have to wait for a year.
It'd be very amusing if someone were to sue to get (some of) their money back under grounds of not delivering on a promise when it is technically entirely possible for the developers to do it.
In this particular case (the Phoenix Point game) they are already offering refunds to backers who don't want it on Epic now and then Steam/GoG later. Somewhere in that Reddit thread they posted that roughly 3% of player backers had requested refunds.
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@cvi said in Epic Store (and other "Occupy Steam" movements):
I've not seen you putting forward any other informed reason, though.
I'm actually better described by the preceding part of my sentence that you quoted. That is, if my starting of this very thread and the content of my posts here aren't evidence enough.
@cvi said in Epic Store (and other "Occupy Steam" movements):
So if I trace Steam or whatever and make a huge reddit post
Oh, it probably does something. And it would be good to know, so please go ahead. But as long as we're talking about not Steam, pot-kettle, that sort of thing... well... it doesn't help the case, does it?
@cvi said in Epic Store (and other "Occupy Steam" movements):
That hardly seems specific to Epic, though.
Indeed. That's why I used the term "anyone".
@cvi said in Epic Store (and other "Occupy Steam" movements):
they have at least one person who knows what their program is doing and can form coherent english sentences to explain it.
I'm sure they do. It's that the trust has been broken, because they didn't tell it to anyone in advance, in some place where anybody would see it, in coherent, clear and honest sentences, and before they were caught.
Trust is a funny thing: difficult to retain, easy to lose, nigh impossible to regain. But it's hardly a requirement if they get their exclusives. And once they're lost trust, there's suddenly a lot more up for grabs. It's a good plan and it will almost certainly work, too.Fortnite money will run out sooner or later. There are some that say, out of their ass or otherwise, that 12% cut is not sustainable. Be as it may, Epic will be unable to remain as profitable as it is to its shareholders if it keeps doing what it's currently doing - spending money in a manner that appears to be that of a drunken sailor. I don't think they haven't thought this through. There are lots of possible things they can sell to maintain profits, but the obvious answer these days is customer data.
@cvi said in Epic Store (and other "Occupy Steam" movements):
Have you read their EULA? (I haven't.)
Nobody does. That doesn't make it right.
Not that I'm trying to convince anybody. Not only that's not very likely, but now that I've confessed being a Steam apologist in the most clear terms I could gather, it would be also most inappropriate.
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@Applied-Mediocrity said in Epic Store (and other "Occupy Steam" movements):
I'm sure they do. It's that the trust has been broken, because they didn't tell it to anyone in advance, in some place where anybody would see it, in coherent, clear and honest sentences, and before they were caught.
But ... what didn't they tell in advance? That they use Chromium? And caught doing what? Using tracking pixels? Webpage analytics? (FWIW, I'm still talking about that reddit post - I haven't read anything other than that thread, this thread, and some random announcement about the Epic Store. )
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@cvi
Well, I've said in the very first post of today's squabble there's no smoke without fire (in slightly different terms) and quoted Tim's reply that I found objectionable (which is why I quoted it). But do take a look-see here for the exact spot.But for kneeling warthogs I'll misrepresent it in my own words here:
The Launcher therefore has been collecting and storing a copy of any Steam profile data (not just friends, but games and playtimes) from the local machine it's installed on (provided that there is any). And not just yours, if such a connection could be reliably made, which it cannot. Any. It's not being sent to Epic unless you link the accounts and approve that you do want to import the friend list (it says it doesn't parse the rest of the stuff), but it's collected and stored nevertheless. Why? Because they're incompetent stumblefucks (see Tim's reply again)? Color me unconvinced.
Now, as long as your Steam profile is public information, you could say it's public information. Shady as fuck, of course, because Steam is its direct and most concerning competitor. One may say this data belongs to Valve. I'm not entirely convinced that it does not. But the important matter, however, are private profiles. The public API would refuse to provide any data on such profiles. Alas, the public API is not even involved, obviously because they don't know about your profile until you choose to tell them. The data is scraped from users' local machines. To that Tim Swindley gives the "not invented here" as a reason. Again, color me unconvinced.
The "we forgot to remove the thing that does the sneaky thing" bit was growing beard already back when Le Goog used it for the wardriving thing and then used it again when they oopsie forgot to delete the data.
Be as it may, it actually doesn't change anything. Either they're dishonest crooks or they're incompetent stumblefucks, I don't want to encourage them by dealing with them, not if I can help it. Unfortunately I already sort of did (I registered to see what it's all about), but that's my own lookout.
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@Applied-Mediocrity I haven't spent any money in the Epic Store, but I'm happy to accept free games from them. I think it's the best way to deal with it for now.
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@Parody said in Epic Store (and other "Occupy Steam" movements):
@dkf said in Epic Store (and other "Occupy Steam" movements):
@Rhywden said in Epic Store (and other "Occupy Steam" movements):
Any backers who want their games on those platforms will have to wait for a year.
It'd be very amusing if someone were to sue to get (some of) their money back under grounds of not delivering on a promise when it is technically entirely possible for the developers to do it.
In this particular case (the Phoenix Point game) they are already offering refunds to backers who don't want it on Epic now and then Steam/GoG later. Somewhere in that Reddit thread they posted that roughly 3% of player backers had requested refunds.
Yeah, and 103.75% of all statistics are made up.
I wouldn't trust these fuckers at all:
They do not do email verification.
Plus, neither a review section nor refunds possible. Remind me how they're better than Steam again?
Sounds to me like someone decided: "Oh, we need a store!" and only after they signed some contracts thought about implementing the damn thing.
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Also, this gem:
How in the fuck do you accidentally implement a new way to pay for stuff?
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@Rhywden said in Epic Store (and other "Occupy Steam" movements):
Sounds to me like someone decided: "Oh, we need a store!" and only after they signed some contracts thought about implementing the damn thing.
Very close; the Store started as the developer-oriented Unreal Engine downloader and content Marketplace. One of the first updates was letting you install more than one version of the Engine; only two years later they let you move the download location!
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@Applied-Mediocrity said in Epic Store (and other "Occupy Steam" movements):
The Launcher therefore has been collecting and storing a copy of any Steam profile data
It's OK, the data is encrypted. Using XOR
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So far I haven't been bothered to actually install the Epic launcher, just claim the better freebies. Guess it's a good thing I did that.
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I don't really give a shit because my profile is public anyway.
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@pie_flavor But is it OK for Epic to know that your identity in their system is the same as your identity somewhere else? That's really none of their business.
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@dkf yes, god forbid they link identities. *clicks Sign in with Google button*
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Halal fell ill fell atti a-yo...
We gettin' Fortnite money
We gettin' Fortnite money
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Just another game that originally said it would be on Steam that went with the exclusivity deal. Besides the sarcasm about how many sales, it looks like they're trying to blame pirates for a perceived lack of sales instead of, you know, them going to the Epic Games Store exclusively.
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@ChaosTheEternal If it's any consolation to them, I would have purchased exactly as many copies of their game on Steam as I have on the Epic Store.
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If it's any consolation to them, I'm not even going to pirate it. Now, they've probably got something playable there, it's just that my goat don't float that way is all. And amidst kids having Meinkraft and Fornicate to build shit in, Plunkbat, Apex Leggings and lots of others, and generally an overproduction of online crap to be glued to I can imagine why sales might be, well, unsatisfactory.
Anyway, well, they could do worse. They could go full Randy Bitchford, for example, and write a massive fucking Twatter tirade about it. I mean, alright, some people hate Epic, some may love it, some took money, but chill the fsck out, man. It's as if he souped up on ol' Elon's twattage and decided that's just the right way a CEO of big company should act in public. Also, where does he find the goddamn time...
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@ChaosTheEternal Seems like their "social manager" is a true professional:
backup
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@JBert Reading around other tweets, the person running the Satisfactory twitter is the same Jace:
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@ChaosTheEternal My point still stands.
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Slaving away in the Fortnite sweatshop, bringing Epic that sweet money to keep paying off devs for the exclusive deals...
In a dozen interviews conducted by Polygon over a period of several months, current and former employees say they regularly worked in excess of 70-hour weeks, with some reporting 100-hour weeks. Contract staff in Epic’s quality assurance and customer service departments spoke of a stressful and hostile working environment in which working overtime — while officially voluntary — was an expected service to the company.
“The executives keep reacting and changing things,” said the source. “Everything has to be done immediately. We’re not allowed to spend time on anything. If something breaks — a weapon, say — then we can’t just turn it off and fix it with the next patch. It has to be fixed immediately, and all the while, we’re still working on next week’s patch. It’s brutal.
“All [management] wanted was people who are disposable,” said a source. “The situation was, ‘Come in and do as many hours as we need you.’ They put the contractors in a situation where if they don’t do that overtime, they know they’re not coming back.
“One senior guy would say, ‘Just get more bodies.’ That’s what the contractors were called: bodies. And then when we’re done with them, we can just dispose of them. They can be replaced with fresh people who don’t have the toxic nature of being disgruntled.”
“Crunch was everywhere. Even facilities and office management. The only people that got away with not doing crunch were basically the guys that were telling people to crunch.
So, yeah, if Tim Sweeney wants his workers to do 70-hour work weeks, then he can set an example by doing so himself too. Shouldn't be a problem, right?
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Now, it's true that Artifact isn't big (in fact, it's epic fail, *cough*), and apart from that and keeping the storefront running they've been doing fsck all else. But it's refreshing to see people taking it easy in an entire industry that's been fscking itself into the wall to move ahead.
E: I forgot Campo Santo was eaten by Valve. I guess it counts as making games then?
Filed under:
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@Atazhaia said in Epic Store (and other "Occupy Steam" movements):
So, yeah, if Tim Sweeney wants his workers to do 70-hour work weeks, then he can set an example by doing so himself too.
I'd assume he's doing just that, putting in the hours at the Country Club. That golf handicap won't get down to single figures by itself…
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@ChaosTheEternal said in Epic Store (and other "Occupy Steam" movements):
Just another game that originally said it would be on Steam that went with the exclusivity deal. Besides the sarcasm about how many sales, it looks like they're trying to blame pirates for a perceived lack of sales instead of, you know, them going to the Epic Games Store exclusively.
Ah, just a joke! It's all good, then.
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And the EGS is launching their summer sale before summer has even started. And on every game in the store pretty much, regardless if the publisher wanted to be part of the sale or not. Which has led to a few games being temporarily pulled from the store, as apparently Epic doesn't know to to exclude games from the sale. Pro storefront there, guys.
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@Atazhaia that's your cue to buy lots of games from the EGS, because Epic is the one eating the cost of each sale.
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@Rhywden said in Epic Store (and other "Occupy Steam" movements):
How in the fuck do you accidentally implement a new way to pay for stuff?
I'd imagine by accidentally releasing a dev/test branch to live
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@pie_flavor Whenever they get the EGS to have all the basic store functionality expected from a modern game store implemented, has stopped giving the middle finger to non-US customers, has stopped being a total asshole to customers and developers alike, then I can consider buying from the EGS.
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@Atazhaia said in Epic Store (and other "Occupy Steam" movements):
@pie_flavor Whenever they get the EGS to have all the basic store functionality expected from a modern game store implemented,
You mean like selling games? They've got that one down.
has stopped giving the middle finger to non-US customers,
Meh, I do that too.
has stopped being a total asshole to customers
They sort of make gigantic sales at their own loss.
and developers alike,
They sort of pay the developers a lot more than Steam does.
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@pie_flavor said in Epic Store (and other "Occupy Steam" movements):
@Atazhaia said in Epic Store (and other "Occupy Steam" movements):
@pie_flavor Whenever they get the EGS to have all the basic store functionality expected from a modern game store implemented,
You mean like selling games? They've got that one down.
You know what's nice when there's a sale and you want to buy several products at once? Being able to put them all in a shopping cart and buy them all at once in one purchase. Last I checked, the EGS lacked having a shopping cart. Something that even the most basic homegrown hacked-together store solution manages to get right.
has stopped giving the middle finger to non-US customers,
Meh, I do that too.
Tell me exactly what benefit EGS gives me, the consumer, when the games on EGS cost the same as on every other storefront here?
has stopped being a total asshole to customers
They sort of make gigantic sales at their own loss.
How charitable of them. And what are they gonna do when all that sweet Fortnite money runs out?
and developers alike,
They sort of pay the developers a lot more than Steam does.
And they also force developers to be part of their sale regardless if the developer wants it or not. Even new and unreleased games, kinda the games you typically DON'T want on sale. Which led to devs delisting games on the EGS during the sale because apparently the incompetent devs at Epic don't know how to exclude titles from sales.
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@Atazhaia said in Epic Store (and other "Occupy Steam" movements):
a shopping cart
The lack of which can mean, and has:
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@SlackerD said in Epic Store (and other "Occupy Steam" movements):
Ah, just a joke! It's all good, then.
I can't stand these bullshit, egdi-boi, epic-bants, social media accounts that are being used for real companies. It's unprofessional and ridiculous. I'm also not buying Satisfactory until it's on Steam, if that means never then fine. I made a mistake once and used Origin, which now won't stop spamming me, I also don't want another fucking launcher. They can put that in their cute social-media account and smoke it.
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@Atazhaia said in Epic Store (and other "Occupy Steam" movements):
And they also force developers to be part of their sale regardless if the developer wants it or not. Even new and unreleased games, kinda the games you typically DON'T want on sale. Which led to devs delisting games on the EGS during the sale because apparently the incompetent devs at Epic don't know how to exclude titles from sales.
The incompetence is astounding really.
I suspect all packaged storefront software derives from a single base. At first, it was because they all had the same missing features and broken search functionality. It became really obvious when I was on a Chinese-run TransFormer store and noticed that items being out of stock not only no longer disabled the add-to-cart button but didn't prevent said items from being added to an open order either. Suddenly, I was seeing that behavior everywhere I shopped. Something so simple and it's fucking wrong.
Seriously...is the average IQ in our industry fucking negative?
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@Zenith said in Epic Store (and other "Occupy Steam" movements):
Seriously...is the average IQ in our industry fucking negative?
Including the "IT consulting and outsourcing" companies - absolutely.
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@loopback0 said in Epic Store (and other "Occupy Steam" movements):
absolutely
No, the absolute value can never be negative, by definition.
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@Zenith said in Epic Store (and other "Occupy Steam" movements):
Seriously...is the average IQ in our industry fucking negative?
That'd require there to be people who literally make others stupider by just walking into the room. So maybe yes…
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@Atazhaia said in Epic Store (and other "Occupy Steam" movements):
You know what's nice when there's a sale and you want to buy several products at once? Being able to put them all in a shopping cart and buy them all at once in one purchase. Last I checked, the EGS lacked having a shopping cart. Something that even the most basic homegrown hacked-together store solution manages to get right.
Also anecdotally, there seem to be problems with whatever they're using as their payment processor. I have friends who've tried to buy a game and have literally tried every credit card they had before giving up because the fucking store reported some sort of transaction issue with every single one of them.
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@heterodox Interesting. I ran into a similar issue trying to use a credit card at collectible store called Chosen Prime. I ran 4 cards from 4 different issuers and kept getting the dreaded "herp derp, needful being trying again" error. That was the second time I tried to buy something there, so it's been that way for at least 2 months now. Shocking, really.
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The more I read about this, the more I think “Epic Fail”.
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@Zenith said in Epic Store (and other "Occupy Steam" movements):
@Atazhaia said in Epic Store (and other "Occupy Steam" movements):
And they also force developers to be part of their sale regardless if the developer wants it or not. Even new and unreleased games, kinda the games you typically DON'T want on sale. Which led to devs delisting games on the EGS during the sale because apparently the incompetent devs at Epic don't know how to exclude titles from sales.
The incompetence is astounding really.
I suspect all packaged storefront software derives from a single base. At first, it was because they all had the same missing features and broken search functionality. It became really obvious when I was on a Chinese-run TransFormer store and noticed that items being out of stock not only no longer disabled the add-to-cart button but didn't prevent said items from being added to an open order either. Suddenly, I was seeing that behavior everywhere I shopped. Something so simple and it's fucking wrong.
Seriously...is the average IQ in our industry fucking negative?
They all do the needful from broken stack overflow, or broken tutorial.
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@ChaosTheEternal said in Epic Store (and other "Occupy Steam" movements):
Lol joke's on you, it was just a joke!!1! Total sales actually over 500000.