This whole thing is a massive mess, and it's nigh-impossible for me to take any real stance on this. It's a constant back-and-forth between
"People are just fearmongering the spyware" and
"Dude, look at this shit, why are they doing this and this with their program?"
Like, look at this for example. It's not worded in exactly polite manner, but it seeks to make points about the data-snooping stuff.
(There's the n-word mentioned once in small print on this picture, so if I should link this instead, let me know @mods)
I'm not on a windows computer right now so I can't look into it myself, but my guess is that it's looking through registry entries looking for something specific, i.e where some programs are installed, user preferences, etc. However if it's the case that they're collecting this data, then that is pretty shitty. I'm going to give Epic my benefit of doubt since software analytics are very common nowadays. If you're concerned about that, just look into how much data windows 10 sends to microsoft about your computer to get an idea of extremely invasive tracking.
Steam does similar software analytics:
But again, I can't really look into exactly
how much they're doing.
The location tracking thing is a moot point because that registry entry doesn't actually contain location information, just your preferences on location awareness.
EGS uses a tracking pixel which is, again, used on almost every website you visit in one form or another. This is just simple analytics - how much traffic is going to certain pages of the store, etc. I highly doubt that the data sent via their site tracking has much info about your computer outside of the simple software analytics that I mentioned previously. We use similar analytics on the forums to see what the popular pages are, where our userbase is coming from, what devices are the most popular, etc. This is very standard stuff.
Again, the scanning of Steam's info is on par with Steam since they also do the same to Epic's launcher.
This entire image is just someone pushing the "Chinese spyware" rhetoric and people are buying into it because Epic have a "connection with the Chinese government". Tencent just bought shares of a company as an investment. Epic makes fat stacks from Fortnite and the value of the shares go up - resulting in money for Tencent. That's how investment works.
I could not give two fucks about having my library in one place. I play Sea of Thieves regularly, meaning I have to use the Xbox App too, not just steam. I even used to play Fortnite when it first came out so I used to use the Epic launcher too. What is pissing me off is that I have to use platforms that lack features that I like to use or I have to use UI that could be better just to play a game I want to play. I go out of my way to avoid launchers that aren't steam because almost every single one I've used has gotten in the way or been tedious one way or another.
Yes, because Steam hasn't went out of their way to pull in publishers or forced anything to be an exclusive to their platform. Nowhere has Steam went to a publisher and went "your game must stay here for a year", like Epic has.
I'm aware it's not a backroom handing over of money, but when it boils down to it, a business deal where one side gives the other an extremely high bonus in return for something preferential, it is - in essence - a bribe.
Also, misrepresenting deals? More like you're being purposely dense to the nature of the deal. A bribe is a deal, and a deal can be a bribe. The two are not completely separate and to insinuate that is nothing short of ignorance.
A lot (if not all?) of the exclusives that Epic has are single-player experiences, and I feel that this was done intentionally because Epic knows that they don't have their infrastructure in place for mass consumption just yet (i.e matchmaking, lobbies/voice chat, inventory, etc). This means there's really no platform features that you need to get the full experience of the exclusives you're playing. If they paid for CS:GO to be an exclusive and all of a sudden you can't access your crates because there's no functionality there, then it would be understandable. However, this isn't the case.
UI is a pretty subjective point and adapts to the needs of the platform over time. Let's take the "they only just added search to the store" criticism. Only until like a month ago, the store had a handful of games. Let's say 15 - 20. Putting in a search for so few entries doesn't make much sense while they can focus their efforts on something more important at hand. Getting the other more important features that people want - like regional pricing, maybe? Now that EGS announced a good amount of games (and along with other developers/publishers putting their games on the platform anyway), having a search makes sense because it takes more than one flick of the scroll wheel to browse the entire catalog.
Valve didn't
have to pay anyone for exclusives because a large majority of the games were already exclusive to their platform anyway, or they were a joint release between Steam and literally any other platform. They didn't have to care about Origin's exclusives because they already have an unmatched iron grip on the PC gaming market that any "lost income" from not having the game on their store is peanuts compared to the revenue coming in from the other games they sell. I don't know if Valve would do the same if the roles were reversed between them and Epic, but if they didn't, I'm sure they would have a hell of a difficult time getting their foot in the door at all.
You can call it a "bribe" if you want, but it happens between corporations on the daily. Here's
Netflix's $100 million "bribe" for AT&T to keep exclusive streaming rights the Friends TV series. You can disagree with those business tactics, but this is how capitalism works, and it's done quite a bit.
I'd like to say I'm fairly sure the guys at Epic said the launcher shouldn't have been monitoring that shit and Steam got on their ass about it, it was something that happened due to them rushing out the door.
Again, they do listen to criticisms about their platform believe it or not. I'm sure they have or will change the way their tracking works. They've already said that
they aren't going to do any more exclusives after the one-year terms have expired. They've
adjusted the way their Steam friends import works so that it doesn't access that data if it doesn't need to.
I believe Epic is a company that legitimately wants to do good for the PC gaming market, and they're doing what they need to so they can actually gain a decent marketshare. I'm in support because we need to break up the PC gaming monopoly - or any monopoly in general. I like some of Chrome's features but I use Firefox because they want to open up the web with open standards and make the market fair. Epic is doing stuff in the same vein; Tim Sweeney has stated multiple times that his goal is to provide an alternative platform and push for open standards/interopability so people actually get a choice.
Epic was behind the push for cross-platform gameplay with Fortnite so you could play on any device you wanted with your friends and not worry about being on the same platform or having to buy a console to play the same game with your pals. They even got Sony to open up to the idea which is fucking wild since they have had a strict stance against any cross-platform play for quite some time.
Without turning this thread into some hate machine against the Chinese Government I will have to state that much of the "private" market in China has strong connections with the Chinese Government, you need only to look at the troubles that Huawei has been having and the direct help that the PRC has been giving during events like the arrest of Meng Wanzhou. You also have various governments forbidding the use of Huawei equipment in state-level jobs due to the fears of international spying.
But going back to the funding, the money might actually come from the indirectly Chinese Government, they are more than happy to know that they hold foreign capital and stakes in growing companies around the world. A 40% share is a lot for a growing and popular company like Epic Games, the companies you linked had sold about <20% of their shares to Tencent which allows for a bigger diversity in the company's portfolio.
Afaik you need to have some connections or something with the Chinese government in order to actually have a successful business. If you want to have a product in China, you'll need to have a presence within China (i.e a company) and comply with their own data protection laws which requires all Chinese user data to be held within China itself (i.e using servers in China). This is notoriously difficult to do, and Tencent specializes in connecting a non-Chinese game to a Chinese audience, a market of at least a few hundred million players(!!!). They've done the exact same with PUBG, League of Legends, etc.
I don't know if comparing Tencent to Huawei is really a fair comparison, they're in completely different markets and the issues are quite different as well.
The amount of the company doesn't matter as much as whether or not they own a majority. They have the same power as someone who owns 1% of the company, which is very little at all anyway. Tim Sweeney is still the majority shareholder and still calls the shots. Epic is still owns and is in control of all their data.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not enthusiastic about Epic's involvement with Tencent, but I think it's being blown way out of proportion.