Even vibe-coding didn't help EGS bypass Valve - now Steam launches faster than the EGS client created with AI

Quite recently, Epic Games introduced a preview version of the launcher for its own store, the Epic Games Store. During the promotion, the developers emphasized the technical advantage over their competitor.

It was noted that the Epic Games Store now launches faster than Steam — a "cold start" of EGS took 5.47 seconds, while for Steam this figure was slightly more than 10 seconds. Thus, EGS launches approximately 46% faster.

However, against this backdrop, Valve released a major update. Its main part is dedicated to expanding customization options for Steam Big Picture mode, but there were also technical improvements, including optimization of client launch.

Soon, tech enthusiasts began conducting tests and found that Valve quietly accelerated Steam — the developers did not make any loud announcements or comparisons, as was the case with the Epic Games Store.

As reported, the Steam client now launched on the test machine in 5.23 seconds, i.e., slightly faster than the Epic Games Store client.

It is noteworthy that the new Epic Games Store client was created with the help of artificial intelligence. In the description of the Steam update, Valve did not specify whether its developers used AI technologies during client optimization.