JEMC said:
7 years after launch and 18 years after Steam, the Epic Games Store will now let you gift games directly to your friends
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/seven-years-after-launch-and-eighteen-years-after-steam-the-epic-games-store-will-now-let-you-gift-games-directly-to-your-friends/
Good news, everyone! A mere seven years since it launched, the Epic Games Store has gifting now! The Fortnite developer announced the new feature in a post on the store, stating that "players can now purchase and send games directly to friends on their Epic friends list."
Users who purchase gifts through Epic's payment system will earn Epic Rewards—which gives customers between 5% and 20% back on Epic purchases. The post also says that "recipients can use their Epic Rewards balance to redeem gifts"—an odd phrasing that makes it sound like you'll need to use Reward points to redeem a gift you've been given. However, in the longer Gift FAQ, Epic clarifies that "you can use your Epic Rewards balance toward a gift purchase" which makes a lot more sense.
As for what you can gift friends on Epic, the answer is most items on the store, but not everything. The exceptions are free games (for obvious reasons) pre-purchase offers, subscriptions, and in-game currency or other consumable items. Anyone who receives a gift on Epic has 14 days to claim it, somewhat shorter than the 30 days allowed by Steam. |
I'm not going to complain about improvements, but rather the lack of them: I don't hear very much about improvements to Epic's service, but this one I time do, it's a feature that's only meant to increase sales. It's hard to avoid the impression that Epic doesn't really make any improvements unless they directly contribute to increased sales. Steam, on the other hand, still keeps finding ways to improve the user experience, even if it has no direct benefit to Valve. When I recently played the only game I've ever played on Epic, Alan Wake II, it was hard to not be amazed at how poorly Epic has treated the service and especially the client. It was by far the worst client I've used.
As far as I can see, Epic doesn't even pretend that it cares about its customers at all. It's impossible to ignore the free games, but with the service being this bad, in most cases I'd honestly rather pay for them elsewhere if I was interested in playing them.
