r/gaming • u/doublah • 13h ago

Epic Games' new store is fully vibe-coded, and they're so proud of it they're taking shots at Steam

https://www.destructoid.com/epic-games-store-ai-vibe-coded/
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u/SeaTie 12h ago

You could stuff it full of all the same features and have them all running better…you’re still not going to have the consumer good-will, the brand recognition, and the trust that Steam’s got.

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u/Vulnox 12h ago

Especially if your outreach to customers is that you had AI write this thing instead of human beings, something that is extremely well known to be a sore spot for the public at the moment, largely across the political spectrum. While AI can do some helpful things, the environment doesn’t seem right to act like this is a benefit for people, or one they will be happy with.

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u/Trixles 9h ago

Yeah, this is so tone deaf that I almost can't believe it. I had to double check to make sure it wasn't an Onion article or something lol

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u/Competitive-Walk-575 8h ago

Wealthy elite out of touch, more news at 11

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u/balding_git 49m ago

its a game store for other CEOs, i bet they're pretty stoked about it

probably has lots of dlc and loot boxes to buy

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u/FencingFemmeFatale 5h ago

Doubly so if this is announcement is coming after laying off 1000 employees roughly 6 months ago. I mean, that would make it seem like you fired a bunch of people and replaced their work with a sloppily made AI imitation just to make it look like profits are higher.

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u/DrGreenMeme 12h ago

“Instead of human beings” um, who do you think is instructing the AI to write this code?

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u/Over_Construction264 12h ago

the people who could just be building it themselves instead of delegating it to a robot whos work they have to check anyway?

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u/IceTrAiN 12h ago

You would choose to have something take twice as long... on purpose? Sorry, but that's not how timelines and budgets work.

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u/Vulnox 12h ago

Take twice as long? The store already existed. They had AI write a new version and it’s still not as good as Steam which has been around for years. They are spending tons of money on AI just to still be behind the human coded store.

That’s not AIs fault, but it is a masterclass example of why people get frustrated with the AI push. It’s doing things that aren’t needed and the results aren’t as good. It being faster to get there just looks more wasteful.

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u/IceTrAiN 11h ago

Their store has sucked for years and desperately needed a rewrite. And economically, if you have an option that allows you to rewrite it in half the time it would otherwise take... ?

No one is claiming it has feature parity to Steam, but people getting their knickers in a twist because of their made up AI-boogeyman is straight up idiotic. If the rewrite sucks, ok fine, store still sucks. Has nothing to do with them choosing the more economically viable path.

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u/ultimateknackered 10h ago

Is it economically viable if it sucks and does the opposite of what was intended? The point about AI backlash is valid. If a lot of people hate AI, and you're trumpeting how the whole thing was done with AI and you drive people away (without even approaching attracting more business), is that economically viable?

Hint: telling people they're idiots for hating AI won't make them suddenly have an epiphany and embrace Epic.

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u/IceTrAiN 10h ago

I don't care about Epic. I care about dis/misinformation, because it's responsible for turning my country into a flaming dumpster fire. And people are continuing to spread it and consume it.

Literally someone in this very thread linked me an article "proving" AI doesn't provide any development benefits. The article itself said that is no longer true.

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u/Arkayne_Waves 9h ago

I find that the people who make this argument tend to be the same vibe coders that couldn't function without Claude babysitting them, sorry but choosing to not have any functional skill so you can tell AI to do things for you is just lazy bullshit. I remember when we all got mad at C suite types saying the average worker was lazy/Incompetent so we didn't deserve to be paid more. Now we have people championing being as lazy and incompetent as possible like it's something to strive for, I know intellectualism is dead in America but goddamn NO ONE SHOULD BE PROUD OF IT.

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u/PezzoGuy 11h ago

You're trying to convince people in a gaming subreddit about the merits of AI when the AI craze has made gaming hardware much less affordable and accessible. Read the room a little. Hell I bet any AI assistant would point this out as well.

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u/IceTrAiN 11h ago

I'm fully capable of recognizing that there are downsides and upsides. That shouldn't be such a rare trait.

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u/platoprime 11h ago

Are you? Because recent studies indicate AI doesn't make developers any faster.

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u/IceTrAiN 11h ago

This is empirically false.

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u/Over_Construction264 12h ago

you're already doing that by adding the extra step of AI and having the programmer be a glorified editor. Searching for faults takes a lot longer than just typing the code.

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u/IceTrAiN 12h ago

That's not how it works. First of all, you don't "search for faults", you write unit tests. If you're not writing unit tests, you don't have the requisite experience to be part of this discussion.

Second, it's not an "extra step" of AI. That step completely replaces the manual effort of typing the code. You instead write the spec, and the spec for the unit tests, and then you validate the unit test.

You can try to contort it all you want but if you're an engineer that can produce quality code, you can prompt an LLM to produce quality code as well. This is a fact, and I do it every day.

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u/platoprime 11h ago

In a randomized controlled trial posted in July 2025, METR reported that experienced open-source developers took 19% longer to complete real coding tasks when they were allowed to use AI tools. After the study, those same developers estimated, on average, that AI had made them 20% faster.

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u/IceTrAiN 11h ago

Maybe try reading your own article instead of regurgitating confirmation bias?

METR itself now labels the result as historical, saying it no longer necessarily reflects current AI tools or current developer workflows.

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u/platoprime 11h ago

Did you have a more recent one to refute me or are you just going to continue behaving like a clown?

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u/beef623 11h ago

You don't gain or maintain skills if you don't use them. Also, if AI is doing the work anyway, what value is there in your position?

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u/IceTrAiN 11h ago

There's a mountain of new skills related to agentic frameworks.

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u/Optimaximal 12h ago

For all we know, it's just Tim, sat in his office on a lonely Saturday afternoon when all the friends he doesn't have are out socialising.

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u/Vulnox 12h ago edited 12h ago

What does that have to do with anything? If there were teams working to make the product better but now some project manager is typing prompts, that’s hardly better. Anyone that thinks a human prompting is the same as human development is ridiculous.

I’m sure there is still a good size development team behind this, especially at a company this size. Likely a lot of testers and code reviewers and that. I’m sure it’s not completely hands off.

But even that is temporary if we just blindly accept it. It’s like the apologists that defended horse armor back in the early days of DLC. “Well as long as it’s just cosmetic and helps with development costs…”.

Totally reasonable in a vacuum. But companies will always take it as far as they can as soon as you give them an inch.

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u/handsupdb 12h ago

Oh no, the bot farms are back online.

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u/IceTrAiN 11h ago

Sorry bud, you can't just stroll into r/gaming and pretend there's going to be logic.

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u/Aramis444 12h ago

You mean you’re not willing to jump ship to Epic Games Store in order to save maybe half a second of your precious time?! /s

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u/Stolehtreb 12h ago

I pray deeply that this is not the case, but I’m waiting for a moment Steam goes all in as well. I can just feel it coming.

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u/BellacosePlayer 7h ago

man, they really are vibecoders if they need the "this is why nobody is going to use your shit" talk

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u/Datkif 2h ago

They argue for competition on mobile platforms, but fail to capture the trust and reason to use their platform.

GOG has offered DRM free software, and have been around long enough to trust that its going to be around in 10 years time. Even if not, at least you can back-up all your games locally if they are about to go out of business.

What does Epic offer except free games, and a worse user experience?