Epic Games has been one of the biggest success stories of the last 20 years in the gaming sphere, bringing out massive hits and a huge array of services including ongoing content, esports and game development tools. But is Epic Games safe to use?
Epic Games is safe to use and offers many great features like weekly free games and a massive range of top titles. Epic has proven to be an innovative, respected company without any significant security concerns and plenty of fresh content.
Let’s look at what Epic Games is, what is involved with their storefront, as well as their security policies and history in the scene. We’ll also consider malware accusations and why personal information is requested by them.
Is Epic Games Site Safe?
Epic Games is a United States video game company that has its origins in 1991 and has since grown to a multi-billion dollar company. [1] They are subject to laws all around the world and are in control of some of the biggest pieces of intellectual property around.
It is not in Epic’s interest to throw away massive future revenue streams by tanking their reputation.
Epic Games and the Epic Store have been trying to make inroads into the gaming market and break Steam’s dominance, especially over the PC segment for years, and the last thing Epic needs in this pitched battle is to have a black mark over them.
Being most well-known for the 2017 smash hit Fortnite, they also have developed one of the most successful game engines of all time in the Unreal Engine. A string of high profile purchases and mergers also see them in control of many other huge titles.
Epic is a massive company that runs a very large support team contactable via email or live chat. They are active on social media and unlike many other technology or gaming companies, will often respond to inquiries.
Epic is also constantly monitoring all their services and have employed many security experts to look for vulnerabilities as well as keeping on top of the latest attack vectors.
Epic has refund policies and fraud policies, so if your account is compromised and money is spent, they will often be able to fully refund it or do a make-good in most situations.
It is important to realize that much of what Epic does, particularly in regards to the Epic Store, is to try and draw customers away from Steam and keep them long term. This is achieved via many ways but primarily it is important that people like and trust Epic.
This is why Epic offers weekly free games as well as massive discounting several times a year, while also having exclusive games. They also try to tempt developers by offering to take a much smaller cut of any sale rather than the higher 30% found on Steam.
Epic pays for the free games so that you don’t have to, because they understand that the key to ongoing revenue for them is to get people hooked on the store and thereafter spend money on Epic games and services.
Steam has also had a long time to build up a user base with big libraries representing a big investment in both time and money. Epic is hoping to achieve this same thing but are having to play catchup.
Epic also offers many security features like verifying your account and setting up two-factor authentication as well as offering many other account security tips via a security bulletin. [2]
Use the Epic Games Store rather than making purchases online, and be wary of websites that offer free skins or account statistics as these are often only fronts to gain access to your account information.
The Epic Games app is free to download and use, and you can build up a sizable game library of top titles without ever needing to spend a cent of real money or register a credit card.
It’s even possible to earn money through Fortnite’s Support-a-Creator program or via esports. [3]
Epic’s program has been doing this for several years and despite paying out millions of dollars they have not been shut down due to privacy concerns, tax mishandling or other reasons perhaps reflects how legitimate the overall operation is.
Is It Safe to Use Credit Cards on Epic Games?
Epic Games is legally obligated to protect personal information and stop data leaks. Any misstep in this area is not only going to be costly in terms of potential litigation, but also priceless in the amount of loss that would flow to a discredited company.
Epic Games has moved towards the Game as a Service model, similar to the Software as a Service model, which attempts to move to an ongoing revenue stream rather than relying on a one-off purchase of a software title.
Conservatively, Epic makes hundreds of millions a year in revenue from many revenue streams, of which Fortnite is one of the biggest but far from the only one. They are valued in the tens of billions of dollars when considering equity and intellectual property.
This means that they need to make their users feel confident that they can make microtransactions and other payments via the Epic Store or in-game without worrying about losing their data or having their private details exposed or scammed.
There are many minors who use Epic Games who need to convince their parents that using their credit cards are safe, so it is in Epic’s interest to do everything they can to project this type of image.
Epic has secure payment processing and follows all the top security procedures, but like any activities online there is a possibility out of the millions of transactions that something could go wrong. But there is no greater risk of this happening with Epic than anyone else.
Is Epic Games a Malware Disguised as a Gaming Store?
It is important to recognize why Epic Games gets accused of being a malware distributor to better understand whether it is true or not, as there is no evidence that proves malware.
Epic Games has many large investors, with one of them being the largest video games publisher in the world, Tencent. Tencent is most well-known for WeChat, and owning Riot, the massive developer behind the gaming phenomenon known as League of Legends.
According to Epic’s Tim Sweeney, the partnership was partly due to Tencent’s founders loving Unreal Tournament and Epic looking to expand into online games, of which Tencent is a proven expert. [4]
Tencent also has investments in many large music and movie conglomerates. While not a foolproof argument, it is hard to see how they could get involved with so many different companies if they are doing shady moves all the time.
It is Tencent’s operations via WeChat that have raised a lot of eyebrows, with their collection of data and close links back to the Chinese government leaving many suspicious that Tencent could do the same with Epic.
The gaming industry has been replete with scandals involving licensing, and many other breaches, so it’s natural for many others to consider that Epic Games is doing the same thing.
There is also another aspect which is that Epic is one of the first real competitors to Steam, and having to build up and manage another games service may make some users annoyed or even resentful.
Does Epic Games Sell Your Data?
Epic makes too much money off their legitimate businesses to risk it selling personal data that could get them in trouble. The golden goose of Fortnite and the many other successful ventures under the Epic brand are too good to waste time on scamming their customers.
Epic’s privacy policy lists the times they collect data and when they share data, being a relatively standard policy that gives them leeway to provide services while still offering protection of your private data. [5]
They will share anonymized or aggregated data but this won’t have much impact on you as an individual and is common among all industries.
The legal trouble for selling personal data would be never ending, likely even resulting in shareholder actions or other significant actions that could even see the company being restructured or ended.
Why Is Epic Games Asking for SSN?
Social Security Numbers are needed for Epic to verify the age of their users. This is not the only way to verify, as you can also supply a credit or debit card.
Epic is committed to ensuring that children are only using the internet with their parent’s permission, including the creation of accounts and what services they use. [6]
Epic purchased the company SuperAwesome to run this verification, and this is also partly pushed by legislation and regulation such as COPPA, GDPR-K and others which regulate personal information provided by children.
These requests for a SSN are legitimately from Epic, and most users will never see them as it is only triggered when you’re in a jurisdiction that requires verification, and Epic has some information or suspects that you may be underage.
