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Thanks to some effort from the team behind Lutris (and Wine of course), you can now run the Epic Store quite easily on Linux.

The official Lutris Twitter account posted this yesterday:

Good news! @EpicGames Store is now fully functional under Linux if you use Lutris to install it! No issues observed whatsoever. lutris.net/games/epic-gam… @TimSweeneyEpic will probably like this

What's interesting is that Tim Sweeney, the founder of Epic Games, directly replied to their Twitter post to say "Great work!" but even more interestingly they also sent another Tweet with this:

@LutrisGaming please consider applying: unrealengine.com/en-US/megagran…

So while the Epic Store doesn't have a Linux version currently on their roadmap, it seems they are at least willing in some way to support a community effort of getting it running on Linux. Not ideal of course but better than nothing? Considering all the free games the Epic Store are giving out and likely plenty of them will work fine in Wine, this might be quite interesting for some of our readers.

I tested it out briefly and it does indeed work nicely, thanks to Lutris it really is a one-click install:

To my surprise, installing (and actually playing) The Witness which is currently free on the Epic Store, worked fine as well. Honestly, I'm shocked at how easy this all is.

Personally, I still hope that one day Epic Games do bring their store to Linux officially. I would honestly love to play Fortnite properly on Linux, as I'm sure plenty of others would as there's nothing like it available on Linux. There's some that may be slightly similar but nothing really close.

Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
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g000h Apr 18, 2019
I've gone through numerous thoughts and a range of emotions with respect to the Epic store. This latest news about easy running of Epic's windows client via the hard work of the Lutris and WINE teams does soften my dislike of Epic a little. On the one side, the Epic game client now works easily on Linux, and a selection of games (including exclusives not available elsewhere) is now accessible from this store front. On the other side, there is no native Linux game client, and none of the games being sold on the store is native Linux. Also, I find exclusivity to be an abhorrent anti-consumer practice designed to restrict consumer freedom while being beneficial to the store and game publishers.

So, this is my take on it: (1) Get an Epic account and pick up the free games. (2) Avoid buying on the Epic store as much as possible (until the current situation changes). (3) Keep buying native Linux games on stores that support us, typically Steam, GOG, itch.io, Humble, and similar. (4) If you have to buy a Windows-only title, at least try to buy it on Steam and play it with Proton, to boost Linux play and purchase statistics.
rick01457 Apr 18, 2019
Quoting: g000hI've gone through...
I share your views on this. This whole epic store debacle had an extra bite for Linux users as Steam is in-arguably the better store for us, and that just isn't going to change anytime soon. Proton is fantastic. Even if Epic came out with a native Linux store, without proton our options become very limited. Of course the excellent people working on Lutris gives us a nice easy way to avoid that issue.

A big concern right now is that Valve may have to scale back spending on their non-store related projects so that they can focus on seeing off the competition from Epic. I expect that they are deep enough into Linux now as to make that a secure part of their future, but I'd be disappointed if they stopped working on their hardware too.

To play devils advocate on the exclusivity issue, there aren't many ways for Epic to establish themselves as a viable competition to Steam right now, and their fortnite money will only last so long. It is an abhorrent anti-consumer practice for sure but we will have to wait and see whether it is a sign of how they will act in the long term, once fully established. One hopes (without any reason for hoping this) that exclusivity is a temporary measure.
Purple Library Guy Apr 18, 2019
So Linux users can now use the Epic store!
. . . Ask me if I care.
jarhead_h Apr 18, 2019
This is what Tim Sweeny thinks of us:

QuoteTim Sweeney
‏ @TimSweeneyEpic
Replying to @JamesWidman @_photex_ and

Installing Linux is sort of the equivalent of moving to Canada when one doesn’t like US political trends.

Nope, we’ve got to fight for the freedoms we have today, where we have them today.
3:44 PM - 15 Feb 2018

If you want to use WINE to help pay his electric bill, go for it. I'll stick with Steam and GOG.
Purple Library Guy Apr 18, 2019
Quoting: g000h(4) If you have to buy a Windows-only title, at least try to buy it on Steam and play it with Proton, to boost Linux play and purchase statistics.
So many reasons to be annoyed by the Epic store I hadn't even thought of this angle. To be sure, a store with no Linux client and no Linux games and nothing like Proton is going to record all Linux users and all Linux purchases as Windows. We can use it but we will be non-persons; all use of the Epic store rather than Steam will look like a drop in Linux gaming. And no matter how many Linux gamers use the store Sweeney will have no motivation to improve our situation because we will be invisible to him.


Last edited by Purple Library Guy on 18 April 2019 at 4:01 pm UTC
scaine Apr 18, 2019
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So, developer Lars Doucet did an interesting twitter thread on Epic's money recently. Have a read here.

Based on that thread, it's absolutely mind-boggling to think that it's anything other than absolutely trivial for this company to support our platform. But instead, they'd rather throw a rounding error at Lutris devs to absolve all support burden and keep us at arm's length, while they continue to throw anywhere between $5M-$50M at AAA devs to go exclusive on their store.

Pretty depressing. So, well done Lutris devs. I hope they go for and get the grant. But no thanks, not for me. Not touching anything to do with these anti-consumer... people. And Tim Sweeney... urgh. The hypocrisy just gets my goat.
Purple Library Guy Apr 18, 2019
Quoting: scaineSo, developer Lars Doucet did an interesting twitter thread on Epic's money recently. Have a read here.

Based on that thread, it's absolutely mind-boggling to think that it's anything other than absolutely trivial for this company to support our platform. But instead, they'd rather throw a rounding error at Lutris devs to absolve all support burden and keep us at arm's length, while they continue to throw anywhere between $5M-$50M at AAA devs to go exclusive on their store.

Pretty depressing. So, well done Lutris devs. I hope they go for and get the grant. But no thanks, not for me. Not touching anything to do with these anti-consumer... people. And Tim Sweeney... urgh. The hypocrisy just gets my goat.
A great thread, although I think he missed out marketing expenses, which can be very big--the bigger the studio, the bigger marketing expenses tend to loom, even in proportion to size. However, the basic point that Epic == Swimming In Dough still holds, especially since he flat out deliberately ignored all of their normal revenue sources other than Fortnite; presumably those normal revenue sources would be enough to pay for the marketing.
Shmerl Apr 18, 2019
Instead of grants, let Epic support Linux games in their client and store. Not that I plan to use it, since it's not DRM-free.


Last edited by Shmerl on 18 April 2019 at 4:19 pm UTC
qptain Nemo Apr 18, 2019
Quoting: Purple Library GuySo Linux users can now use the Epic store!
. . . Ask me if I care.
Do you care?
Audi Apr 18, 2019
Quoting: omer666@epic, look at Quake Champions. That's the kind of games we want to play: Violent, fast-paced FPS. Not some gimmicky nonsense for kids.

I agree. In watching videos of Fortnite, it just looks slow and boring. I play Ballistic Overkill. The game is fast paced, fun to play and runs great on Linux.
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