Image: Epic Games

Okay, call me old-school if you want, but if I'm going to be interacting with a store and potentially giving it my credit card details, I'd like to have the underlying software be human-made. If only so I know who to blame when my personal details and login credentials are inevitably stolen. That's no longer the case over on the Epic Store, sadly. As part of a broader push to integrate generative AI into everything the company does, they've rolled out a new version of their desktop store app, boasting that it's twice as fast as booting up Steam now, and entirely coded by machines because "Programming is hard." Which is something I never want to hear from people writing important code.

This comes hot on the heels of a Bloomberg report that Epic is mandating that its staff use AI, with an upcoming Disney crossover shooter project delayed so they can completely move away from human-written code. Now, I'm no fan of any game store. I might write a lot about stuff released on Steam, but I've always been critical of its shortcomings, toxic communities, and Valve's steep 30% cut of the profits. I regularly pick up the freebies that the Epic store gives away, and have snagged a few things when they've offered especially good discounts.

After today, you'd be hard-pressed to talk me into spending another penny on Epic now, and I plan on double-checking whether they've got any payment details saved. I do not trust the glorified chatbots they call 'generative AI' to handle basic, simple tasks like spell-checking or even reading the number of words in an article. I absolutely do not trust such a system with my money, or anything that could otherwise compromise my system.

Worse still, Epic's engines are still a cornerstone of the games industry, on which many studios rely. I wish I could say that Unity was doing better, but they've seemingly suffered the same major malfunction, recently unveiling a prompt-driven game creation framework that will allow even the most imaginatively stunted of creators to generate... a corridor shooter. In space. Hrm.

This is on top of all the other Epic Store missteps, including their decision to make the storefront a haven for Web3/NFT/Crypto-currency based games. A thankfully small and massively underperforming segment of the industry (and rightfully so), but as broadly libertarian as Valve can be, they still don't allow that garbage on Steam.

And of course, despite operating Fortnite - one of the biggest cash cows this side of Roblox - the company is still reportedly struggling to make ends meet, laying off over a thousand staff earlier this year. Presumably, some talented coders amongst them who wouldn't turn to LLMs because "Programming is hard".

I do my best to be positive about games and the industry. I really do. But stories like this? Not doing wonders for my hope in the future, or general mental health. I know I am just one tiny voice in an endless void, but would you fucking knock it off, please!? Thank you.