After announcing Borderlands 4 for Steam, Randy Pitchford revisits his prediction of store’s death

Gearbox CEO Randy Pitchford has revisited comments he made in 2019 predicting that Steam could be a “dying store” by now, following the news that Borderlands 4 will launch on the platform.

In 2019, the last Borderlands game, Borderlands 3, was announced as an Epic Games Store exclusive – a controversial decision at the time, due to Steam’s stranglehold on PC game sales.

In a lengthy Twitter thread following the 2019 news, Pitchford had claimed that “when we look back at Steam in five or ten years, it may look like a dying store”, and pointed to Epic’s significant investment into its own platform, and more attractive commercial terms.

After Borderlands 4 was announced for Steam this week, Pitchford’s comments unsurprisingly began recirculating on social media, prompting the exec to publish a fresh response.

Pitchford stated that he had high hopes for the Epic Games Store, which he claimed had ultimately been overly optimistic.

However, the exec claimed that Borderlands 3 and Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands “demonstrated clearly” that “the customers show up for the games, not the store front” with their launches on the Epic Games Store, and bemoaned Steam competitors “shoot[ing] themselves in the foot”.

“If Epic successfully pressed its advantage, [Steam dying] may have been the case. But Epic did not,” he wrote. “So, famously, Steam does very little to earn the massive cut they take and continues its effective monopoly in the West while would-be competitors with much more developer friendly models continue to shoot themselves in the foot.

“I am a Steam customer and Steam developer that will continue to root for and support competition. Borderlands 3 and Wonderlands demonstrated clearly that the customers show up for the games, not the store front.

“But the industry gives Steam their monopoly because publishers are afraid to take the risk to support more developer and publisher friendly stores. It’s all very interesting and there is a huge amount of opportunity in the PC gaming space for retail disruption, but no one seems to be able to make it happen.”

Pitchford added that, as a Steam Deck user, his bias for personal interest and convenience was fighting against his wish for a more developer-friendly alternative.

“I had high hopes for Epic – hopes that were validated in the moment of the Borderlands 3 and Wonderlands launches. But my long term hope (that appeared in a dozen’s long tweet storm I did five years ago) regarding Epic’s store were misplaced or overly optimistic.

“It’s a cool lesson for me and anyone who wants to learn from my experience. Moving forward, we’ll continue to support Steam (as we have for literally every PC games we’ve launched since Steam came into existence.

“Meanwhile, I sincerely hope Epic keeps up the fight and makes headway. Epic is going to have to prioritize the store and try some new initiatives while also doubling down on earning pivotal exclusives if it is going to have a chance.

“I also hope other viable competitors arrive. I am sure we will all be watching. As a developer I will continue to balance being where the customers are with being where I wished would earn the customers trust and loyalty. As a game player, I will be on all the platforms.”

Epic launched its PC games marketplace in December 2018 as a rival to Valve’s dominant Steam platform. In a bid to take market share, Epic offered game makers a more generous revenue split, with 88% of sales going to the developer and 12% to Epic, compared to 70/30 on its rival.

Epic has also spent heavily to secure major third-party timed exclusive releases, and has invested millions on its weekly free game giveaways. However, according to Epic CEO Tim Sweeney, its store has struggled to take market share from Valve in recent years, sitting at around 15 percent.