Back in February Epic Games told us about its plan to overhaul the Epic launcher, with an update in June mentioning it would start up five times faster on average. That technical overhaul will apparently be accompanied by changes to the storefront including personalized game recommendations, quick-access categories, and patch notes right there on the shop. All stuff that would have been nice to have at the end of 2018 when the Epic launcher arrived, but is it too late for a recovery? I asked Emmanuel Rosier, director of market intelligence at industry analysts Newzoo.

"I don't really see how they can turn that around," Rosier says, "because Steam has become so inevitable. The Epic Games Store, they get players by giving free games, but people just go, they log in, they get the free games, they don't even play them. You know, it's almost like collecting games rather than actually playing them."

On a sample size of one I am the person who actually plays some of the free games I've been given by Epic over the years, and without that program I probably wouldn't have tried Guardians of the Galaxy, Ghostwire: Tokyo, Vampyr, Control, Assassin's Creed Syndicate, or Kardboard Kings. But whether most people play them or not, it's telling that a free giveaway can actually boost sales on Steam, as it did for Blood West, thanks to players not wanting to split their library.

"The challenge I think Epic is facing is that they try to win everywhere in the past few years," Rosier says.

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