Ever since Epic Games launched its own Store in 2018 (my, time flies), it’s done just about anything to wrest some of the PC market share off of Valve’s Steam. This ranges from offering to take a smaller cut from devs with each sale, to buying them outright. This sometimes results in games becoming exclusive on Epic Games’ platform. In its most recent attempt, the company has announced a new version of the Epic Games Store (EGS) that’s faster than before. But most importantly, the new launcher is a result of vibe coding.
“Programming is hard. So, instead of doing that, we vibe coded a new Epic Games Launcher that’s way faster and more responsive than the current one, and has a new look”, the announcement post opens. This is then followed by a graph comparing its “Cold Start to Store” and “Restore from System Tray to Library” speeds – not to the old version, but to Steam instead. At least for the former, it does paint a pretty picture, with the vibe-coded EGS being nearly twice as fast as Steam.
More importantly, though, the new EGS has additional features like dedicated pages for games in the library, a unified downloads page, collections, and more. This is all good news for those who do use the Fortnite launcher, but it’s definitely worth mentioning that these are features that have existed on Steam for a while.
And that’s really the crux of the argument against the EGS – Epic Games has been playing catch up with Valve in the storefront space for the better part of a decade, rather than doing something new that Steam doesn’t. And now, the company proudly announces that its newer, faster, better launcher that is closer to catching up to the competition is a result of generative AI, to a crowd of people who are quite staunchly opposed to the tech – gamers. Interesting decisions were made all round to say the least.
It’s also worth noting, according to Tom’s Hardware, that an initial version of the announcement post had Epic Games recommend that competitive players and devs avoid the preview of the new launcher. A company spokesperson says that “the new Epic Games Launcher is in Preview for testing, and with any beta there could be issues. To be clear: once you’re in a game you’re good to go. The same goes for developer tools and non-gaming applications. All of the services will work as intended, and there’s nothing that would prevent casual or competitive play”. This statement can now also be found in the announcement post.
At any rate, you can now download the new Epic Games Store by hitting the link below. Just keep the disclaimer by the spokesperson, and the fact that it was vibe-coded into existence, in mind if you decide to give it a go.
(Source: Epic Games [1], [2], Tom’s Hardware)
