Yes. And what happens is that the government needs to raise taxes to compensate for the lost income, which hurts the honest people more than the dishonest people. I abhor this thinking, because it’s morally bankrupt.
Only to people who believe it’s OK to make themselves richer at other people’s expense. You can never legislate decency and morals, but society would collapse if human beings ONLY followed the law, and didn’t have a moral compass based on “society must still work if everyone does what I do.” Those who choose to ignore that second half of the social contract are a scourge on the Earth, and anything that rewards those people should be fought with fire, because they destroy what we all have. (See also: Tragedy of the Commons.)
So, don’t be a bad person; do the right thing from the beginning. Normal human beings wouldn’t even ask “how can I cheat EPIC out of some money when I couldn’t possibly have created my game without them in the first place.” If you try to weasel your way out of it, chances are that EPIC has more resources than you if you’re small, and that you have enough juicy profits to feed the lawers on contingency if you’re big. Even a sociopath could see the logic in this. Only a deluded sociopath would try to cheat on the license.