After trying to use the Epic store/launcher for nearly two months I have finally uninstalled it and Unreal because I am really tired of them, I am not going to talk about Unreal in this post and I will focus on the store and launcher only.

So, how was my experience? bad, very bad. the Epic launcher is a joke that makes Origin (EA's launcher) look better, It's the most unusable and heaviest launcher I have installed in a while, I have tried Gamejolt's and Itch's launchers before and they're more usable than the Epic store, why you may ask? here's why :

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Steam vs Epic : Usability

-Switching between pages takes MINUTES, not seconds.. MINUTES, You don't know how many times I have left my computer and went to grab a snack or a cup of coffee just to switch between a page, If I want to open my library I have to wait, If i want to open Unreal to work on a project I have to wait, If i want to browse the store for games, I have to wait for ages. Meanwhile on steam, switching between my library of games, tools and software literally only takes a millisecond to load.

-Steam is more lightweight than the Epic Launcher, I already said in the title that I am a LSG (LowSpecGamer) so I prefer not having any kind of heavy loads while playing in the background, the Epic Launcher is not even close to lightweight, the launcher will use 300MBs of ram and sometimes even 800MBs for no reason what so ever, meanwhile on steam it only uses between 50MBs to 80MBs of ram, not only that, Steam also doesn't use any of my CPU when i am not looking at it, however, the Epic launcher will continue to use the CPU (for some reason) and won't idle what so ever, this of course impacts performance while working and while playing video games, something I do not tolerate at all when using a launcher.

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Alright, we have talked about Usability, but what about downloading and buying games?

Steam vs Epic : The Library, store and your Internet.

-If you live in a country where your internet is bad, do not touch the Epic store, I have spent WEEKS to download Unreal, Fortnite and a few games that were free on the store back then, games that were the size of 10GBs that took a day or two to download on Steam take 4+ days to download on the Epic store, This is inexcusable for a company that wants to take over Steam's place, but honestly, if they can't make a functioning launcher why should i expect them to create a few usable EU servers near where I live, I guess all the servers are going into fortnite instead of their Launcher

-Steam also uses some magic tricks to make downloading games a lot shorter and faster, I am not sure how they do it but games that are 1GB in size can suddenly only need to download 700MBs only, Something that the Epic game store is not capable of. (If anyone knows how Steam does that please share it down, I wanna know what they do to shorten downloads)

-The Epic Store is Empty and doesn't have any good old games aside from super meat boy, Why would you stop using Steam to support a bunch of triple A companies and give them that "extra" money from revenue share? sure there are a couple indie games there but I seriously don't give a single crap about them anymore because of the Epic Launcher and how unusable it is, On steam I can get the entire Dreamcast collection in my library and I won't find it anywhere else, Just a few days ago I just bought Crazy Taxi and I started enjoying my childhood again in no time and I can look for older games on the steam store all day and buy them for cheap instead of spending hundreds of dollars on old (Rare) physical releases that might be a scam as well.

-Steam also offers great deals every week and the Steam summer and winter sale are my favorite times to pick up games off my very long wish list, something that Epic won't probably consider at all.

-And you know what else Epic won't consider? regional pricing, now...Although Steam doesn't support regional pricing in where I live yet they still give me the best options to save on money by not just waiting for a steam sale, they give me an option to go on other websites and get a key for a game that I want for dirt cheap (sometimes these games go for cents), Does Epic do this? No, sure they might do it a year later but it still won't be like how cheap Steam keys are.

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Now I have talked as a consumer, let me talk as a game developer now.

Steam vs Epic : Hurting developers

-The 88% revenue share argument is stupid, just because you gain more from every purchase doesn't mean that developers suddenly are swimming in money and that Epic is the good guy that is helping smol poor indie developers, If there is no consumer to buy your product then the 88% revenue share is just useless, Epic taking games and putting them exclusively on their store just hurts developers and makes the consumer either boycott your game until you release it on GOG or Steam a year later or simply pirate it.

-B-B-But, Exodus sold better than Last night! I don't think people account how Exodus had better marketing than Last night, I also don't think people know that Steam themselves promoted the entire Metro franchise before this entire exclusivity deal happened, I myself never heard of Metro at all until Steam recommended it to me and steam actually got my interest for Exodus, but what has Epic done? it made me just think negatively about the developers of Exodus and immediately made me loss all interest in the franchise and Exodus, and with that Exodus lost a potential fan and a consumer that will give the developers money to continue making more games, I was planning on buying 2033 on steam but now I just simply don't care about it and removed it from my wishlist.

-In short : if you are going to lock away your game behind a launcher that a lot of people don't like you will lose customers who will buy your game, this in return hurts developers and hopefully Epic doesn't continue locking games away inside their store only so more games can reach all audiences on more stores that are not just Steam or Epic.

-But wait, there's more : Since the Epic Launcher is big heavy load, indie developers who don't know how to optimize their games well (Or just uses the Unreal engine or similar heavy engines) will suffer heavy FPS drops on their games thanks to Epic eating away everyone's ram and CPU usage, thanks Epic! making indie developers look bad.

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This is my arguments why Steam is better than Epic, let's have a discussion about what I am right or wrong down below.

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EDIT 1 : I forgot to mention that Steam has a better API and SDK that is available for almost every engine, from Godot to Unity and from BYOND to GameMaker. EDIT 2 : Forgot to also mention that Steam has done more good for the Linux gaming community more than any other company in decades, Proton is free and open source and they also have listings for native Linux games which I don't think Epic has or supports.