Epic Games Store exploit allows you to play and keep a game forever, without even buying it

So it goes like this as I understand: Your friend buys a game on his account. Logs in to the epic launcher using his account on your computer, downloads the game, then logs out. Then you log in to your account the game will still be playable even though you never purchased it.
 
M76 said:
So it goes like this as I understand: Your friend buys a game on his account. Logs in to the epic launcher using his account on your computer, downloads the game, then logs out. Then you log in to your account the game will still be playable even though you never purchased it.
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Sounds like the Xbox, you can apparently do the same thing with digital games on it. Unless that changed in the past few years, because my broke bro-in-law depended on this a lot to play games his friends bought or acquired used consoles with games already loaded on them and played them on his account somehow still.
 
A very similar trick used to be possible on Origin and Steam as well for single player games, where one person would buy the game, then share a duplicate of his DRM license (or sell for like 2 bucks) to others. Because they would screen-share then login, then enable offline mode, it worked with even the most restrictive DRMs.

Only reason I knew those tricks existed were because so many reddit subs were setup for people to share games that way. There was also a Steam exploit where one person could use family-sharing and trick the client into adding many people across the globe to it, who could then play his games for free. They've probably been fixed by now.
 
It's been like this the entire time. This isn't a new "vulnerability" like the article says.

EGS doesn't have DRM so if the game doesn't add any that's exactly how it is supposed to work.
You can even download games, uninstall EGS, and still play them.
 
notarat said:
One could say that's an...wait for it..."epic" screw up
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How so? Its not even an exploit. This is DRM free games working as intended. You can do the same with every game on GOG or any DRM free game on other platforms. The only reason anyone cares about this "news" is because it deals with Epic and bad news about EGS gets clicks regardless of its validity.
 
Plenty of games are "DRM Free" including on Steam, but this sounds like something different if it enables online play. I assume that Borderlands 3 (for example) requires some sort of account (with a specific key or authorization) in order to play online, right? If I can log into an EGS account that owns BL3 , download it, log out, and log in with another (my specific or a dummy account) and it will just notice that BL3 is installed and let me play online with my account, that... I can't imagine ANY publisher wont lose their mind over this.

If the "issue" only extends to offline single player, its not a huge deal and is analogous to what other posters have been noting on other clients. However, there is still the potential with EGS accounts not properly keeping an account's privileges listed properly which could be a security flaw.
 
Derangel said:
The only reason anyone cares about this "news" is because it deals with Epic and bad news about EGS gets clicks regardless of its validity.
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True, but they kind of deserved it. Half baked store, exclusivity nonsense, etc.
 
EGS doesn't require DRM. Steam actually doesn't either. But most devs on Steam use DRM. I assume Steam DRM is easier to implement or Valve pushes it harder. Obviously a developer can put DRM on EGS and can use 3rd party stuff like Starforce or Denuvo.

So yes, you can do this on Steam to. Just that few games would work due to most of them using Steam DRM.
 
dark_reign said:
True, but they kind of deserved it. Half baked store, exclusivity nonsense, etc.
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They deserve to be called out on actual issues. Making things up or making a mountain out of a mole hill does no one any good and just makes the valid complaints seem weaker.
 
Derangel said:
They deserve to be called out on actual issues. Making things up or making a mountain out of a mole hill does no one any good and just makes the valid complaints seem weaker.
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These exploits aren't EGS working-as-intended. That's the disconnect you seem to be missing in your defense. It's epic's ineptitude and general disinterest in actually putting effort into creating a viable store. Publishers are not happy with this situation.

If these were intended features then they'd be advertised as so.
 
Derangel said:
They deserve to be called out on actual issues. Making things up or making a mountain out of a mole hill does no one any good and just makes the valid complaints seem weaker.
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Exclusivity is a molehill?
 
odditory said:
These exploits aren't EGS working-as-intended. That's the disconnect you seem to be missing in your defense. It's epic's ineptitude and general disinterest in actually putting effort into creating a viable store. Publishers are not happy with this situation.

If these were intended features then they'd be advertised as so. Get a grip.
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The games are DRM free. What, exactly, do you expect Epic to do about it? Force DRM on every game? Then people would pitch a fit about that.

M76 said:
Exclusivity is a molehill?
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I'm very clearly talking about this "exploit". Try to keep up.
 
sharknice said:
It's been like this the entire time. This isn't a new "vulnerability" like the article says.

EGS doesn't have DRM so if the game doesn't add any that's exactly how it is supposed to work.
You can even download games, uninstall EGS, and still play them.
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Right, Steam has the same "issue." You buy older games with no DRM, you can launch the games directly without loading Steam, and may copy the game wherever you want.

I bought Total Annihilation on Steam, and it has no DRM.
 
odditory said:
These exploits aren't EGS working-as-intended. That's the disconnect you seem to be missing in your defense. It's epic's ineptitude and general disinterest in actually putting effort into creating a viable store. Publishers are not happy with this situation.

If these were intended features then they'd be advertised as so.
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You aren't supposed to, but there is nothing to stop it because there is no DRM. Same with Steam and GOG. If the publishers wanted DRM they should've implemented some.

defaultluser said:
Right, Steam has the same "issue." You buy older games with no DRM, you can launch the games directly without loading Steam, and may copy the game wherever you want.

I bought Total Annihilation on Steam, and it has no DRM.
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It isn't even older games, you just have to opt out of DRM. Most publishers use it though.

This happened with Control a while back. A recent update included DRM and people got upset, so they turned it back off because customers considered it false advertising or something.
 
Not even this will make me want to put the EGS on my PC. Nice try Epic.
 
Flogger23m said:
You aren't supposed to, but there is nothing to stop it because there is no DRM. Same with Steam and GOG. If the publishers wanted DRM they should've implemented some.

It isn't even older games, you just have to opt out of DRM. Most publishers use it though.

This happened with Control a while back. A recent update included DRM and people got upset, so they turned it back off because customers considered it false advertising or something.
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There actually is DRM - called EOS (Epic Online Services), but its such barebones dogshit that publishers aren't bothering the way most do with Steamworks and steam-launcher-integrated games. Again, EGS isn't trading on "DRM FREE" as a store selling point.

So publishers that had any expectation that the launcher would at least be able to handle authentication without EOS integration, will have to reevaluate their store choices as this gains exposure.

People defending this as "but its always been that way" like that means it doesn't matter, or that its always been a selling point, are being disingenuous.

The takeaway is it makes EGS look like a joke, it's not the kind of publicity they want if their intention is to attract more publishers rather than just getting games deleted from Steam.
 
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odditory said:
There actually is DRM - called EOS (Epic Online Services), but its such barebones dogshit that publishers aren't bothering the way most do with Steamworks and steam-launcher-integrated games. Again, EGS isn't trading on "DRM FREE" as a store selling point.

So publishers that had any expectation that the launcher would at least be able to handle authentication without EOS integration, will have to reevaluate their store choices as this gains exposure.

People defending this as "but its always been that way" like that means it doesn't matter, or that its always been a selling point, are being disingenuous.

The takeaway is it makes EGS look like a joke, it's not the kind of publicity they want if their intention is to attract more publishers rather than just getting games deleted from Steam.
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If this makes EGS look like a joke then so is GOG and so are all DRM free games on Steam. Why does it matter if Epic is advertising games as DRM free or not? That is entirely irrelevant and feels like you are trying to make up some argument to make this seem like some major issue. Studios are free to implement their own DRM service if they don’t like Epic’s and don’t want their games DRM free. If publishers don’t like their games being DRM free that is their fault for not putting DRM on it. It is not Epic’s responsibility to enable DRM for them. You, rather conveniently, ignored my response to you by the way. Perhaps you have no way to refute it and just want to keep making the same taking points without being challenged on them?
 
Derangel said:
If this makes EGS look like a joke then so is GOG and so are all DRM free games on Steam. Why does it matter if Epic is advertising games as DRM free or not? That is entirely irrelevant and feels like you are trying to make up some argument to make this seem like some major issue. Studios are free to implement their own DRM service if they don’t like Epic’s and don’t want their games DRM free. If publishers don’t like their games being DRM free that is their fault for not putting DRM on it. It is not Epic’s responsibility to enable DRM for them. You, rather conveniently, ignored my response to you by the way. Perhaps you have no way to refute it and just want to keep making the same taking points without being challenged on them?
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He doesn't care about the details, he just hates EGS. I'm sure Epic's DRM is as ineffective as Valve's solution which is literally cracked in minutes. But it is there if they want it. Some of the developers like Gearbox are using Denuvo on EGS which is somewhat effective but even then, it gets cracked eventually.

General consensus these days is to not bother with DRM unless you're going to use Denuvo. I think only a few publishers left bother with something else. Activision and Rockstar? The only ones that seem to buck the trend is Japanese developers who tend to catch onto PC gaming trends 3-5 years late.
 
There is a small difference here, sure any drm free game you can copy anywhere. This one the game will show up in the egs client after someone else downloads it on their account and logs out and you login. You don't even have to create a shortcut, it will just show up in egs client, even though you haven't bought it.

I dont think GOG, steam etc are going to show a game in your library that you didn't pay for, unless you add a shortcut manually. This is what the fuss is about, and no doubt egs will have to fix this eventually.
 
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