Epic Games tried to do a little fun thing for National Video Games Day, right? They actually went with a tweet being all like, “Hey, there is an End of Summer Sale going on until September 18th; check out all these discounted titles, just sayin’;” plus that cheeky emoji. With the usual reaction to sales being cool sales all around, the replies exploded with anger and calls-for-boycotts. And it isn’t even about the games?? Now, the comment section is flooded to the point of absurdity, with regulars vowing to uninstall their Epic launcher.
According to the rapid commentariat, the reason is an Epic Games staff member and gamers just put this on blast. A reply from Zeba states, “I can’t support a company with employees that celebrate public executions,” which is… uh, Yeah. Pretty heavy for someone to just toss around on a tweet about video game sales. And it’s not one? John Schmidlein replied that he immediately deleted Epic Games off his computer and will “never support a company that would celebrate or justify killing someone over their beliefs.” Clearly, there is some serious drama behind the scenes that Epic definitely did not expect to come up under their sale announcement.
Then, Dubsâ• has come out with “This you?” and a link, which is always the most savage company-call-out you can dish. While Lord Onad has kept it real with “I don’t open the app unless they say free. Sorry steam ma go2,” which honestly vibe but speaks volumes on how Epic’s reputation has been dented before-or-whatever-this-new-controversy-is.-
The Merchant from Resident Evil 4 (Iconic) even put in, “Unless Tim Sweeney is fired I’m done with epic games and unreal engine,” with yet another link dragging the CEO into this. And millstone added, “Reminder, the people who are calling for firings are the moderates,” implying things are even more intense than what we are seeing.
Saxondogge also said, “I won’t ever forget your comments about Charlie Kirk,” so political commentary is now involved. SynapseMirror asked whether Epic keep “workers who post assassination threats online against their political opposition under their employ” and whether they’ve issued a statement condemning this person’s actions. So there is apparently some specific incident which triggered all these outrages.
These aside are some positive comments by little vibe, who said, “National Video Games Day 🔥🔥🔥” with his quote from Elon Musk that goes, “Video games are meant for immersion and fun with friends.” Hype TRIP just went in saying, “gm gm Epic 💙,” but these were entirely drowned out by the backlash.
OGK.ron was trying to pull it back to games by asking, “Are they on sale or for sale? On sale would actually get me excited,” yet no one was having it. The whole topic was very much drowned out by what seems to be some rather heavy workplace drama that Epic Games have yet to publicly acknowledge.
What I find striking is that Epic probably thought they were just doing a standard holiday promotion tweet. Knowing, right, National Video Games Day, summer sale ending soon; typical promotion stuff. Instead, they walked straight into a firestorm of existing players’ anger that had nothing to do with the sale itself. One of those social media disasters where the comments themselves tell a completely different story than what the company intended.
The End of Summer Sale itself looks all good though-running till September 18th, with discounted titles throughout their stores. But looking at the response, I am pretty sure a lot of gamers are never going to check out the sale regardless of the actual deals. When your promotion tweet turns into a boycott announcement in the replies, that probably isn’t the kind of engagement-someone was hoping for.
The entire situation is telling about how fast sentiment can change, or how prior controversies don’t just disappear off the radar. Companies really need to watch their backs because gamers have long memories and, in fact, are never shy about calling out shenanigans they don’t agree with-even if said shenanigans have nothing at all to do with them. That sale is going on, but the conversation is about some altogether different and way more serious things.
Epic Games might want to say something about whatever this is because the response is pretty much unanimous across the replies. When so many people mention uninstalling your launcher and boycotting your products, it’s probably not going to be one of those weeds you just pull out. Especially not with accusations that serious. Those summer sale issues might actually be the absolute last thing on their mind right now.
