The Epic Games Store has revealed a comprehensive 12-month roadmap at Unreal Fest, promising significant improvements including 5x faster boot times, user-written reviews, and a ground-up launcher redesign. Aiming to address long-standing criticisms, these updates target a more competitive stance against Steam. The overhaul comes after years of struggling to match Steam's feature set despite launching in 2018 with attractive developer economics.
Gabe Newell, Valve's president, has responded to Steam monopoly accusations, emphasizing that players have "enormous choice" in the PC gaming space. Newell denied allegations of Steam dictating prices to developers on other platforms. The defense comes amidst an ongoing antitrust lawsuit and criticism from competitors like the Epic Games Store.
Chet Faliszek torches Tim Sweeney after Epic’s 1,000 layoffs, saying “Gabe’s better at that than you” and warning morale will crater at Fortnite’s studio.
One day after cutting 1,000+ jobs, Epic's boss called the outgoing talent 'once-in-a-lifetime.' Studios may benefit, but Fortnite and UE now have gaps to fill.
