People didn't care about Tencent ownership until the whole Epic store launch somewhat coinciding with the anti-China propaganda in the west.

Epic was never going to develop a following now that people automatically think anything to do with China = bad. Unlucky for them because the money flowing to small devs is a great improvement from Steam.

But gamers will jump in front of a bus before admitting that dirty Chinese money is arguably being used for some good initiative like funding small indie exclusives, you know curse you it was supposed to be a free market etc and then they would wonder why almost every indie dev prefers Epic deals compared to Steam.