Epic Games rolled out their shiny new "vibe-coded" launcher in preview yesterday, bragging it cold-starts 46% faster than Steam at 5.47 seconds versus Valve's previous 10-ish seconds. Valve dropped a client update the day before that shaved Steam's startup down to around 5.23 seconds on user tests, leaving Epic's only talking point in the dirt before the thing even fully launched. The rest of the EGS still lacks reviews, workshops, community features, and basically everything that makes Steam Steam.

Users on X immediately started clowning the timing, with clips showing Steam now matching or beating the AI-generated rival while Valve actually coded the fix. Epic's "small footprint" rewrite and Linux support sound nice on paper, but when the benchmark edge evaporates overnight, all that's left is a lighter client with the same feature desert. Martin Keely called AI a tool that let a small team rewrite everything, yet Valve's patch proves the old guard still moves faster when it matters.

The whole thing reads like Epic swinging at ghosts and hitting themselves. Steam's update also tossed in Big Picture upgrades and Linux fixes while Epic was busy vibe-prompting their way to mediocrity. One day of marketing hype, one Valve patch, and the "faster than the other guy" slogan becomes a participation trophy.