5 years after trying for a 'Valve-Counterstrike moment' with Fortnite, the Epic Games Store still isn't turning a profit

pcgamer.com:

Epic's quest to see half the tech industry in court has has put its executives in the witness stand again. This time, the case is the Epic vs Google trial and the executive is Steve Allison, the general manager of the Epic Games Store, who testified yesterday (via The Verge) that the PC storefront continues to generate no profit for the company five years after its December 2018 launch.

Epic sued Google all the way back in 2020 in an attempt to get out of paying the 30% cut that the company takes from transactions on Android's Google Play Store apps (like Fortnite). The trial had its first day in court yesterday, and Allison took the stand in order to give the court a bit of detail about the Epic Games Store, particularly the 12% cut it usually levies on companies who sell their games there. Doesn't that make Google, Apple, and Valve look very greedy indeed?

That's certainly the message Epic hoped to get across, anyway, but amid a barrage of questions, Allison happened to mention that, five years on from the EGS' launch, the store still isn't turning a profit. Its goal is still growth, Allison told the court. No doubt the scads of cash Epic still makes from Fortnite and Unreal Engine licensing helps plug the hole in Epic's financials, but it's affirmation that, for better or worse, Valve still rules the PC game storefront roost in 2023. No wonder they all came crawlin' back to Steam.

To be clear, this isn't dire news for Epic. In fact, it's actually all according to the company's plan, at least outwardly. Two years ago—as part of Epic's court case against the other major mobile platform holder, Apple—we learnt that the Fortnite studio had poured half a billion into the Epic Games Store with no expectation of profit until