Epic Games forced third party account creation in Rocket League

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With the v2.48 patch on January 29th 2025, Steam users wanting to play Rocket League were suddenly met with an error upon startup of the game, with the user being required to create an account with Epic Games before being able to access the game they bought and paid for. This change was not mentioned in the patch notes, and was done well after the game was moved from Steam to EGS in 2020.

Background

In 2015, Rocket League was released by the company Psyonix for all major platforms at the time. Being a sequel to the also popular SARPBC from 2008, the game became a major hit. In May of 2019, Psyonix would be acquired to undisclosed terms by Epic Games. This led to Rocket League being removed from Steam on September 23rd, 2020 (where it was 20$ at the time) and going free to play on the Epic Games Store only. In 2020, support for the Linux and MacOS versions of the game was dropped, however, full refunds were offered. Players who bought the game on Steam were compensated with 3 in-game items, and since then, a system was in place allowing Steam users to keep playing without needing an Epic Games account.

Starting to require an account

This changed on January 29th. As a part of the v2.48 patch made on January 29th, 2025, Steam users were now met with a network error upon launching the game, which forced users to make an account with Epic Games and accept their EULA and Privacy Policy. making this a case of post-purchase EULA modification. There was no option to continue playing online without making an Epic Games account. This incident has flown under the radar among most people, with only the Steam reviews page of the game experiencing an uptick in negative reviews.

Epic Games' response

As the incident has not forced Epic Games to respond, Epic Games has not responded.

References

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psyonix#Rocket_League_and_acquisition_by_Epic_Games_(2013%E2%80%93present)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rocket_League#Free-to-play_transition