The head of Steam maker Valve Gabe Newell has said that it welcomes the competition in the PC games store space from Epic.

In an interview with Edge – as reported by PCGamesN – Newell said that the competition from the Fortnite maker means that both stores will improve.

“Competition is great,” Newell said.

“That’s why we love the PC platform, everybody has to compete on a wide variety of dimensions. Competition in game stores is awesome for everybody. It keeps us honest, it keeps everybody else honest.”

He continued: “You’re like: ‘Argh, they’re yelling, they’re making us look bad'. But in the long term, everybody benefits from the discipline and the thoughtfulness it means you have to have about your business by having people come in and challenge you.”

The Epic Games Store was launched at the end of 2018 and so far has attracted a wide array of exclusive content via Epic's deep pockets. We took a look at the platform's first year in the market at the end of 2019. 

2018 saw a huge shift in the PC storefront space with communications app Discord getting into the game, too, while publisher with their own platforms, such as Activision Blizzard, Bethesda and CD Projekt, started to try and leave Steam out of the mix with mixed success.