Trying to discredit people because of the forum on which they discussed a topic, or because you view them as beneath your skill level, is a more than a little misguided, and frankly, disingenuous.

Epic themselves have admitted to copying Steam data and scanning running processes, as has been documented in various news articles. (example, example)

In any case, the point is not one particular incident or report, but rather that they have the capability, grant themselves permission to use it via their policy documents, and have earned distrust among a lot of gamers. Posting condescending emoji here doesn't change that.

Edit: P.S. In future comments defending Epic, you might do readers the courtesy of stating up front that you are moderator of an Epic Games forum.

Heroic Games Launcher doesn't change the code in the game executable itself, so yes, it is still an issue when using Heroic.

You could download and play the games on a machine that is never used for any other purpose, but it would still be able to collect biometric data (mouse movement, keystroke patterns, voice if you have a microphone, etc.) and probe/fingerprint your network.

Short of a dedicated machine, the closest you're likely to get is a hypervisor-based virtual machine. Of course, that won't safeguard your biometrics or (in most cases) your network, either.

Such a machine would be safer if you never gave it network access, so it couldn't exfiltrate any data that it had collected, but downloading games requires network access at some point, and it would only take milliseconds for a "helper" process (perhaps quietly installed or launched with the game) to leak the data.

In general, hostile code will always be unsafe. If it concerns you, it's best to avoid it entirely.