Epic Games, Inc - What to consider in advance?

To be honest, the people from Epic Games, Inc. are not stupid and they have several mechanics to track consumers on their own platform, platforms like Steam and others as well as cross-over-devices.

From this point of view, it should be clear that it becomes a bit more difficult than just blocking a handful of addresses as some guides would have us believe. This is exactly the point that I find fault with in many tutorials on this platform or e.g. Reddit and Co. Because many people who write, have no clue and do not deal with the matter. In this relation, witch hunts are held from time to time by several users, which disappear again after a short time without significant changes.

Moreover, it is not possible on Steam to present interrelationships clearly and in detail. There are plenty of serious sources in the web. Including company profiles, documentations and SDK's and of course my site as well :P

(E)pic (O)nline (S)ervice/s?

The so called EOS contains few things to force people into their online platform when they launching a game with Unreal Engine.Even and especially if they do not consciously use these services, the entire product runs through their servers and online features are tied to a telemetry service that is beyond good and evil.

1. Achievements
2. Leaderboards
3. Lobbies
4. Matchmaking
5. PlayerDataStorage
6. PlayerReports
7. Sanctions
8. Stats
9. extensive Telemetry/Metrics (Datarouter)

Datarouter Telemetry v1, v2 & v3

Datarouter is one of Epic's mechanics to track and collect data from consumers. This service exist in multiple versions and is highly flexible and customizable. I already published a lot of examples for datarouter telemetry on Steam and on my site.

Examples how games or regulary software is using the Datarouter telemetry

1. Version 1: Datarouter initialization during product startup (old)
2. Version 2: Delayed Datarouter initialization during the first 30 seconds in game (old)
3. Version 3: As a component of other mechanisms e.g. the api.epicgames.dev (new)

In addition to different implementations, we also have different addresses that are contacted, and that's where the problem lies.

One block with endpoints for the old telemetry Service


Can the service be blocked?
Yes, Version 1 and 2 of Datarouter are easy to block and do not interfere with the actual game behaviour.

Version 3 comes along with api.epicgames.dev

Api.epicgames.dev with Metrics

This one is the interesting and complicated part and i have seen some so-called guides who mention to block the API. Well, they forgot one important point. Many games with blocked api.epicgames.dev won't work anymore. The witch hunt that Tomb Raider from SQUARE ENIX CO., LTD. caused recently aside. As already mentioned, the data is the same, with or without account-linking.

Because why? Epic Games, Inc. started someday to implement mandatory telemetry and online functions together for games. Blocking API? Games no longer works at all or only half of the time on Steam or other platforms. Short said. Mandatory core-function.

I got a lot of requests during the last 4 years about my blocklists. Why is my game not working anymore? Why i can't login to service XY? Why my multiplayer mode is blocked? And so on. Especially when it came to games with EPIC mandatory online features, some people were desperate why their game no longer works.Then try to explain why some functions were blocked and evidence with facts.

But do not forget, it's the consumer's choice.

Some screens with details can be seen in the Games gallery section

Even linking with Tomb Raider was no mandatory. But telemetry and online functions. For Satisfactory it was mandatory to access online features. Same counts for Deep Rock Galactic's matchmaking as example. And there are countless other products with the same behaviour these days


Including:
Id's, game lobby data, player actions, purchases, achievements, statistics, session data, account data/user info/ownership tokes, heartbeats, leaderboards, total players, anti-cheat and banstatus as well as instructions for further services from Epic.

That's where i've seen some "guides" lately from people who don't know what exactly is happening at all... but say, "Hey here...you need to block that, it's evil... (and epic)".

Sure, do it, but then don't be surprised if nothing works and you still want to play. You have to think about and why what can and must be blocked where and how.

Account-Linking snippet from the API

API with Endpoints

Metrics with example URL

Can the service be blocked?

Consumer and product depentent. As written. Disable the API and a game maybe won't work or just half. Users must decide for themselves.

Tracking.epicgames.com

Beside the Datarouter Telemetry there are other functions who can track users and it is product depending how these are used.

tracking.epicgames.com - Is used for Javascripts, Pageviews, Trackingpixel and it activates on pretty much every page with actual data and recording of single steps. Well, of course it's part of the launcher or when it comes to Account linking.

So it's a core function and more or less active on every site there. Examples with AWS Endpoints


Can the service be blocked?
Mandatory at least ONCE to login into the Epic Game Launcher. After that the service can be disabled.

et*.epicgames.com

The ET Service is also mentioned in a few "guides".

et.epicgames.com and et2.epicgames.com itself contains session data, unique timestamps and machine/device ID's, platform data, product version and much more. Example game? Valhalla Hills. The funny thing here. On the one side, anonymously data is captured... but together with unique identifiers.


This service is more or less obsolete and is more used in older products.

Can the service be blocked?

Yes, mostly.

qos*.ol.epicgames.com

QOS as example is linked with ingame user-agreements. No agreement? No game. Its that simple, especially when games weren't patched.

Can the service be blocked?

Product dependent

Heartbeat / Callbacks

Heartbeats are some kind of diagnostic telemetry at regular intervals. For games connected to the new EPIC-API, such a service can be found that regularly contacts their servers

Heartbeat contains: AppID, AppVersion, AppEnviromentnumer, Uploadtype of the Metrics itself, SessionID

Example from Killing Floor 2


The behavior is now even permanently activated in the Steam Client.

More details with related IP-adresses on the profile for Valve Corporation

Note that gameindustry.eu is not affiliated with Steam or Valve

Can the service be blocked?

Yes.

Epic Games, Inc. & Tencent Holdings

This passage is just for thought since it's always a topic on Steam or other platforms.

Since Tencent Holdings Limited has bought Shares from Epic Games, Inc. in 2013, various people frightened about to give data away. That's rather laughable for various reasons and especially for 3 reasons alone.

1. What happens to the data itself is known only to the initiated.
   
2. Epic Games, Inc. did the same before Tencent
   
3. Double morality and standards

Tencent itself can be compared to Microsoft, Google, Facebook, Amazon, or Apple. It's a technology company and one of asian Big Players. Next to Alibaba Group Holdings Ltd.or Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd.. in China or as example Sony Entertainment, Inc., or Sammy Holdings in Japan.

The US companies do the same as Tencent and vice versa. However, all corporations have one thing in common. They represent their own interests, have been steering states for 120 years in some cases, and would prefer to completely abolish things like privacy.

Difference? So-called "western hemisphere" has "a" government for each country along with NSA, FBI, Interpol, BKA, GCHQ and many more privacy and rights violating institutions. I don't need to remind anyone that major gaming platforms have also been targeted by security intelligence agencies in US and Europe. Data traffic was directly diverted and read out as in the case of Blizzard Entertainment and World of Warcraft.

In china we have "the" government and many unknown variables. Therefore, people should also deal with it and not as it happens partly show anti-asian behavior without knowledge.

And one more difference. Chinese companies take data more obviously. Western companies more hidden. If western companies would have their way, the GDPR for example, would have been abolished as soon as possible. Facebook as a US privacy breaking technology company has just shown the way few days ago. They do not care about everything and do their thing. Like the whole business. And users? Complain about a single game....

I don't want to defend anyone, the opposite! Both sides are a pests - It's just annoying every time to read, "Ehhhk, Epic, data, china, government".... but when people asked what exactly they don't like? Often enough nothing comes around or better? They play anyways.

And maybe the next thing those people do, they'll ordering from Amazon or buying products from the supermarket on which is written *Made in China*.

Advanced privacy for games

Some know me already from my reviews i mostly write in german. I check games and programs for connections since many years and have build ap an growing database where i publish Spyware mechanics and host lists for users to enhance privacy and deliver some facts for general.

The host is an essential part of operating systems and can be used as Adblock. Systemwide for Desktop and Mobile.

The host list i published can be downloaded on my website or Github in several versions. For people who are not familiar with it, a separate setup has been written. Other stuff would be a Spywarecleaner for Steam, a minimal Steam-Skin and much more.

Especially for gaming the host itself contains now around 1600 games from nearly 1000 publishers with already blocked connections and it's growing slowly. Published and sorted with Publisher,- and product names, additional informations and on my site with many pictures and background stuff about an industry who claims data self-legitimated and often steal without asking for permission.

Host Download
Website: Host Templates
Github: Host Templates on Github

Respect copyrights for my content and terms of use for the further use of the published host files

Product Search
Each already captured game can be seen in a database with additional infos and connections. It's possible to search for publisher, product titles, Steam App Id's and game related exe files for Desktop games.

This is what i can do for others. What are you doing?

Conclusion

As you can see, it is not so simple people to block Epic with a handful of adresses and beside of that the stuff i mentioned here is not complete. This has to do with the fact that Epic Games, Inc. sits on huge structures and changes them partly at will. In addition, there are regional differences in queries.

The host files of mine include approx 200 entries for Epic Games, Inc. Together with collected code examples, checked games and pictures it's a huge **** piece of work to analyze stuff, keep it up-to-date and block it to give people a better privacy feeling. Especially when they want to "play" their products.

But I hope that I could bring a few details close, which are not available in other "guides".

Consumers can do a lot, but it's not possible to block Epic games telemetry behaviour as a whole thing, if users do not change their behavior or are not prepared to do without products with Epic Services or make use of refunds. This can be extended other related companies and services as well.

Postscriptum

I don't like to use the term "gamer", but they have to learn (like everyone else should), how to deal with the companies and products they use every day. And above all ask yourself the question. What does the product actually do? This doesn't just apply to individual products or a service. Do not accept everything and fight for your own privacy rights against the whole business.

Especially gaming is a billion dollar market and data are easier to come by here than almost anywhere else. For free!

So it's no wonder that in addition to the big tech companies (who all own commercial and entertainment platforms) there are numerous small companies that are also getting rich off us, stealing data and taking everything for granted. Games today are built around analytics and spyware and devs do often do not care about.

To mention a few which are often seen in games (Desktop and Mobile):
Microsoft Corporation, Mixpanel, Inc., Unity Technologies, ApS, Amplitude, Inc., Google, LLC, deltaDNA Limited, GameAnalytics, AppsFlyer, Flurry, TrackJS, IronSource, Facebook, Inc., Amazon.com, Inc. and countless more. Product dependent stuff can be found as well in Epic games, next to Datarouter-Services who can work together or replace each other.

Can anything of this Epic stuff be blocked?
Comments have been made on relevant passages. Even if you don't use Epic's service active, passive (META) data, will be send to their servers. If you don't need any online functions you can even disable the api and other stuff (as long as it is not required for the product initialization).

Otherwise it is simple. Refund your games, don't use Epic's platform, don't link your accounts, don't get baited with "goodies" like dogs, don't play games with UE Engine, don't play games with Epic services, renounce and above all... refrain from mendacious double standards that often occurs.