Correct, as an added bonus, they get to report X million monthly active users on top of that to their investors (that's why they make you come back every week for a new game). Likely at relatively little cost to them since they don't have to pay full price for those games.
It's probably still expensive as hell but when you have a competitor as big as Steam in the market, you gotta be able to afford some ammunition, and the Unreal Engine likely still brings in tons of cashflow.
Most of the free games are crap but they have on occasion given away absolute bangers (double- or even triple-A titles, although of course usually older titles or ones that didn't sell well). I recently got The Outer Worlds: Spacer's Choice for free (a game I wouldn't otherwise have bought or even known about), and I ended up having a very solid ~55 hours of fun with it. I still do all my buying either on Steam or GOG because I don't trust Epic and I hate their godforsaken launcher so I refuse to pay for anything that'll be tethered to it, but getting a free game of that caliber certainly made up for the pain of installing it.
Nah, pretty sure this isn't about the data. They just want to encourage people to go through the effort of setting up an account and downloading their launcher in the hopes that they can then later entice you to buy something else while you're there. Every time you run one of those free games they get to show you another offer, and since you're already signed up, the hurdle to buying something is far lower than it otherwise would have been.
Classic mistake
FYI, Black Mesa is currently on sale for $4.99, absolute steal at that price.
Yes, Black Mesa costs money but it's absolutely worth it, they put a LOT of effort into restoring the original as faithful as possible but with more modern graphics (Source engine based). I played the original Half-Life when it came out and Black Mesa definitely gave me the same amount of awe and wonder. One of the best fan remakes of any game I've ever seen.
Also, I see that it's currently on sale for only $5 (75% off), at that price it's a steal and absolutely worth it.
Why is it shortsighted? A service like this costs money to run, and if you won't pay for it, someone else has to.
So did Facebook. It's the old drug dealer gambit: first hit is on the house, after that, you gotta pay.
That’s messed up. Sorry for your loss.
My ex GF had a roommate who was taking this stuff and apparently frequently woke up with empty bags of McDonald’s or Taco Bell on the bed, meaning he’d literally sleepwalk to his car, go to the drive thru, order, drive back, and eat, all without remembering any of it the next day. No idea how this stuff is even legal, it’s a miracle he never ended up in a car accident.
Right. They probably wouldn’t have been able to pull this off for as long as they have been if it was just hemorrhaging money.