TheEpic Games Storehas a lot to love about it, not least the impressively regular offerings of free games, likeRemedy’sControl. Over the last few years it’s been gradually wearing away at the stranglehold Steam has on PC gamers' hard-earned cash. But its users were in for a nasty, if brief, surprise the other day.
Yesterday, just before 9 pm UTC, Epic reported that it was investigating “an issue with logins, as well as an issue involving purchased games not showing up as available/owned.” Users also allegedly experienced difficulties even downloading the launcher from Epic’s website. The downtime was relatively minimal, with the whole episode being marked as resolved on the website within 90 minutes, but that was still plenty of time for irate gamers to flock to the replies of the Epic Games Stores’Twitter accountto complain.
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It’s not immediately evident what exactly caused the outage, but it’s possible that the culprit might have been the popularity of the free games the service offers.WhenGrand Theft Auto 5was added as a free game last year, a tidal wave of excited fans managed to overwhelm the servers, causing similar issues for users. The addition of the much-lovedControlthis month may have proven a bridge too far for the service.
Another culprit could have beenthe recent release ofGenshin Impacton the Epic Games Store. The massively popular free-to-play game launched on the platform on June 9th alongside the release of its hugely-anticipated 1.6 update, bringing a whole new province and plenty more content. An influx of new users downloading it may have ended up putting undue strain on the servers, though it’s unclear if that would be enough to send the whole service into disarray.
On the plus side, it appears that the company’s other games and services weren’t hugely affected by the issue, though the login issuesmay have bled intoFortnitesomewhat. On the other hand, for those who frequently used the launcher and social options of the Epic Games Store, even an hour and a half of downtime doubtless proved quite the inconvenience.
There’s no word just yet on whether Epic will offer anything to its users as recompense for the disruption, as it has done occasionally in the past. If it does, it could manage to keep the goodwill rolling in. However,with E3 and its surrounding chaos well underway, the company may well have enough on its plate for the time being.
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