Gearbox boss Randy Pitchford predicted that the Epic Games Store would kill off Steam 5 years ago, now the internet is mocking him as Borderlands 4 comes crawling back

GamesFPSBorderlandsGearbox boss Randy Pitchford predicted that the Epic Games Store would kill off Steam 5 years ago, now the internet is mocking him as Borderlands 4 comes crawling backWhen you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.Here’s how it works.

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(Image credit: Jon Kopaloff/Getty Images for Lionsgate)

HOLLYWOOD, CALIFORNIA - AUGUST 06: (L-R) Eli Roth and Randy Pitchford attend the after party for the "Borderlands" Los Angeles Fan Event at Dave & Buster�s on August 06, 2024 in Hollywood, California.

And then, well, Borderlands camecrawlin' back to Steam. Five years after Borderlands 3 was announced as an (initial) Epic Games Store exclusive,Borderlands 4 made its debut announcementat last night’s Gamescom Opening Night Live event. It’s coming to Epic, sure, but it’s no exclusive this time. You’ll be able to pick the game up on day one on Steam if that’s your store of choice.

Cue the internet digging up Pitchford’s 2019 tweetstorm about the Epic Store’s bright and sunny future compared to Steam. “From a track record point of view, my expectation is that Epic’s investment in technology will outpace Valve’s substantially,” wrote Pitchford back in April of that year, “When we look back at Steam in five or ten years, it may look like a dying store and other, competitive stores, will be the place to be.” A little later on, he wrote that “if I were to bet on this (and remember I’ve got a pretty good seat with a great view of this competition), Epic will inevitably surpass Valve on features and quality of service.”

From a track record point of view, my expectation is that Epic’s investment in technology will outpace Valve’s substantially. When we look back at Steam in five or ten years, it may look like a dying store and other, competitive stores, will be the place to be.April 13, 2019

Which, ah, has not quite borne out in the last half-decade. Steam is perhaps more dominant than ever and the internet at large is—for reasons both reasonable and unreasonable—intensely hostile to the idea of switching their storefront of choice from Steam to Epic (or any other launcher).

Onlookers have been keen to point that out in numerous posts making fun of Pitchford’s prediction. “Randy ‘Nostradamus’ Pitchford,” wroteone amused commenteron Reddit. “It can happen aaany minute now!“wrote another. “If Randy says my name is something, I [would] double check my birth certificate,” said a user namedares0027, summing up the general tenor of the internet response to Pitchford’s unearthed prophecy.

Others have simply made fun of the Epic Games Store’s relative lack of features compared to Steam, as well as Steam’s (perceived) inactivity that doesn’t seem to have thwarted its dominance. “Just [interested] in what technology Epic invested [in over these] last years?” wrote one user, to whichanother responded"Introducing “Shopping Cart®”—now you can pay for more than one item at a time, truly revolutionary tech!” The EGS, infamously, launched without the ability to add multiple games to your basket at a time.

“It’s like other stores are actively trying to be so fucking worse than Steam,” wroteExtreme_Isopod_9414, to which others replied that Valve’s storefront doesn’t really need to do anything to beat its competition. That’s a strategy a user namedNJ_Legion_Iced_Teagave the pithy name: “Sun Tsu’s art of not being a fucking idiot.”

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You get the idea. To be judiciously fair to Pitchford, he made that prediction mere months after the EGS launched in late 2018. Innovative projects like the Steam Deck were just a glint in Valve’s eye and no one yet realised that Epic’s strategy would revolve more around handing out free games and buying exclusivity rights than it would around making interesting technical investments. Still, I don’t think it would take a genius to predict that Steam wouldn’t become a “dying store” in a mere five years after that point. At leastsomeof the mockery does feel a little earned.

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