Over the past few months, Epic Games has made no secret of its desire to supplant Steam as the go-to platform for PC gaming. The company has built its own launcher and purchased other developers outright while signing deals to bring new releases exclusively to the Epic Games Store. Now, after a Fortnite notification seemingly appeared earlier than intended, an Epic Games Store Megasale has been confirmed to be on the horizon.
Most of the other big names in the game right now are Steam, Humble, and GOG. Players have come to expect sales from those platforms, and the upcoming Steam Summer sale already has the same memes from every year floating around the internet about how we are all ready to pry open our wallets for a great deal on discounted games. This move by Epic would be a big step towards its long-term plan to become the biggest and best, as this would be the first large sale of its kind for them.
The gaffe was not refuted, but instead playfully confirmed as a slight error on their part.
So how exactly does Epic mean to go about challenging Steam? Well, free money is certainly one strategy that is sure to be popular. The leaked ad stated that “The Epic Games Store Megasale is happening right now! Sign up for 2FA in order to get $10 to spend in the store.” This is brilliant on their part because Two-Factor Authentication (2FA) makes the accounts of users more secure and cuts down on account fraud and the costs of dealing with players who have been victimized. It is unclear if those $10 could be spend on V-Bucks in Fortnite or if it must be spend on other titles, but either way it is a step towards having more customers in the future.
Now it seems as though it is up to Steam to respond. As they are already the big player in the game, they could choose to do nothing. It is already well-known that their seasonal sales offer steep discounts on games, which is one reason why they are so powerful as a platform. On the other hand, perhaps they will offer something for customers in an attempt to dissuade any kind of migration from their platform to that of Epic’s.
Whatever happens, we are in a period of time where the slugfest between these platforms results in better deals for the consumer, and that is always going to be a good thing.