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I have never played any of the free games I got on Epic. It happens regularly that I discover a game I bought on Steam, I already owned on Epic for years.
I don't care. The platform is bad, no one uses it, you can't out-Steam Steam.
The only platform I prefer to Steam is GOG. Fuck DRM.
I grab everything on Epic and use playnite to browse my collection.
I recently started playing Gravity Circuit and it is great!
Most of the time when I get a game for free I don't value it as much. There are some exceptions, I've gotten into a few giveaways like Dead Island 2 and Lord of the Rings Return to Moria.
But mostly I want gaming to be convenient. Steam is very convenient and has some really great sales. I recently found a space tower defense game I wanted to try and it was 0.79 on sale. Less than a dollar.
If $'s was my only consideration, I'd pirate the game.
If my valid options are paying $25 to Valve, installing the Epic malware or dealing with pirate sites, I'm sending money to Valve.
Gabe Newell talked about this years ago.
“When you look at the fact that these people have $2000 PCs and they’re spending $50 a month or more on their Internet connections, clearly they’re willing to spend money.
So, from our point of view, what we saw more and more was that piracy is a result of bad service on the part of game companies...”
Gabe is one of the CEOs (if we can call him one?) of a gaming company, who truly understands gamers.
It's never a good idea to fall in love with CEOs; a company may sometime "help" their customer, but when strategic partner asks for a slap in the face for the customer... there's no "may", only must.
Steam comes with Denuvo, third party launcher filled with ads and kernel level anticheat. None of these was required by Valve... yet... they still slap their customer in the face per strategic parteners requests.
Also, refund is not something in Gabe's book: it was written in Australia's laws (also EU and other countries) and only after lot of struggles he conceded it.
Denuvo is not by Steam. It's a third party DRM that the publisher of the game decides to put it. Steam should not be in a position to decide what the publisher do. The anger about Denuvo should be focused on the publisher, not Valve / Steam. I don't know why you think I fall in love with Gabe... I just admire that he understands the gamers and does stuff in Steam that reflects it. Compared to other out of touch CEOs. No need to interpret more that that what I said. And no need to mud something that is positive.
The greatest thing he's done is kept Valve a private company. He's not beholden to shareholders constantly demanding that the line go up at any cost.
Funny how he's still fantastically wealthy. It's almost like treating your employees well and providing a quality product to consumers is a viable path to success, and selling out isn't actually necessary to become rich.