Former Epic devs admit gamers only grab freebies and immediately run back to Steam. We dissect the launcher wars, terrible UI, and the hard truth about UX.
Log into Epic Games. Click "Get". Close Epic. Boot up Steam to actually play games. Sounds familiar, doesn't it? Don't sweat it, you're not the only freeloader out there. Former Epic Games employees just admitted that this is basically the lifecycle of their entire user base.
Let's rewind to 2018. Epic Games Store (EGS) dropped into the PC gaming space like a sweaty tryhard, aiming to dethrone Lord GabeN and Steam. Their strategy? Unfathomable amounts of Fortnite money. Paid exclusivity, better developer revenue splits, and their ultimate weapon: AAA free games every single week.
Did it work to get accounts? Absolutely. Did it build a community? Hell no. According to two former Epic employees, the platform only sees a massive spike in active users when a free game drops. Once the loot is claimed, players immediately bounce back to Steam. Juggling multiple storefronts is a massive pain in the ass, and gamers clearly prefer their centralized library.
Meanwhile, Steam is casually breaking its own records. Just recently, Valve's juggernaut hit 42,318,602 concurrent players. Epic flexes about having 78 million monthly active users, but let's be real—Steam pulls those numbers on a random Tuesday. Player spending on third-party games on EGS hovered around $400 million last year, which is basically a rounding error for Valve.
The Reddit thread discussing this is a goldmine of roasting. The gaming community did not hold back:
From a dev's perspective, this is a masterclass in why UX (User Experience) matters more than your marketing budget. You can bribe users with all the free stuff in the world (User Acquisition), but if your core product runs like a PowerPoint presentation, they will churn out faster than a rage-quitter in League of Legends.
Steam wins because of its ecosystem. Cloud saves that actually work, Steam Workshop, community hubs, and seamless controller support. Unless you have a top-tier game booster designed to reduce game ping and stabilize gaming networks for players around the world, EGS's bloated client will just tank your PC's performance for no good reason.
Competition is great. EGS forcing better revenue splits for devs is a massive W for the industry. But if Tim Sweeney wants us to actually spend money on his store, maybe spend a fraction of that Fortnite money on hiring some decent UI/UX engineers. GG.
Sauce: Reddit - r/gaming
