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 account to 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. When Grand Theft Auto 5 was 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-loved Control this month may have proven a bridge too far for the service.
Another culprit could have been the recent release of Genshin Impact on 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 issues may have bled into Fortnite somewhat. 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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