As some of you might have heard by now, Epic has recently chosen to launch its own storefront where it will play host to their own games as well as games belonging to other developers. We imagine that the company is probably trying to take on the likes of Valve’s Steam platform, which at the moment is more or less the de facto store for PC gaming.However it seems that Epic’s store has come under some controversy where due to the wording in its terms of service, some believe that by agreeing to it you would essentially allow your user information to be shared with other companies. This includes companies such as Tencent who owns a minority stake in Epic.
The good news is that these worries appear to be unfounded. Epic’s founder Tim Sweeney has since replied to the post on Reddit where he denies that this will happen. “Epic does not share user data with Tencent or any other company. We don’t share it, sell it, or broker access to it for advertising like so many other companies do. I’m the founder and controlling shareholder of Epic and would never allow this to happen.”
He also explained why the terms of service was worded as such. “The language related to sharing data with the parent companies refers to Epic Games Inc. It’s a US-based company. This language exists because when you buy an Epic game in certain territories (like Europe), the seller of record is our local (e.g. European) subsidiary company for tax purposes, but the data is ultimately stored by Epic Games Inc.”