memes

You're not really dependent on EGS just because of the free games; neither in the sense of drugs nor as in you build an infrastructure on it, like with other software. Let's say you're a student and get Microsoft products for free. You wrote applications for Windows, you create office documents. Later, Microsoft charges for new versions (since you're no longer a student). Now you have the choice: keep using unsupported software which is a security risk; pay up; or migrate everything you have created over the years, which will take a long time. You have become dependent on the vendor.

With games, who gives a damn? It's not like Little Nightmares 2 replaced Little Nightmares. I just keep that version. They're completely different things. No more free games with EGS? Okay, now what? I'll just keep using what I have. There is no lock-in effect. This is all just a promotion for their shop like a free ride voucher for a theme park where they hope you spend money on other stuff as well. Or basically any loss-leader anywhere, just that it's not sold under price, but actually given away for free.

There's a good reason the free games are so far down on their website, they want you to scroll all the way down and look at their stuff so that you maybe buy something. Which is fine by me, I actually even bought something there once (shouldn't have, game was way below expectations, but that's on me).

So yeah they're not giving stuff out because they're good. But it's also not nefarious. Just really lazy and I guess more expensive in the long run.