Five years after it took on Steam, Epic Games Store is yet to make a penny of profit
Almost five years since it launched - and two years after Epic revealed they hoped to gobble up half of all PC gaming revenue - the Epic Games Store is still yet to turn a profit.
The reveal came during an ongoing legal battle between Epic and Google over the former’s efforts to dodge handing 30% of real-life money spent on V-Bucks in the mobile version of Fortnite to Google, as per the latter’s Google Play Store cut.
Epic’s move to direct players to buy the in-game currency directly from them by offering a 20% discount led to Google dropping Fortnite from its Android store in 2020, which resulted in Epic suing Google over alleged antitrust - which Google responded to in kind with a lawsuit for alleged breach of contract. And here we are.
In the midst of their latest legal tussle, Epic Games Store head honcho Steve Allison took to the witness stand and revealed that Epic’s much-touted Steam rival is still yet to make a penny of profit since launching in December 2018.
As reported by The Verge, Allison said that Epic still plans for growth - having said during its similar legal fight with Apple over Fortnite microtransactions in 2021 that it hoped to claim half of all money spent on PC gaming, as long as Steam didn’t “react” to the threat - but the store is yet to make any money.
Epic has since continued to sink millions into weekly free games and scooping up PC exclusives - including the recent Alan Wake 2 and Assassin's Creed Mirage - while offering users money back on games they buy via the Epic Rewards scheme. They stepped up their efforts to win over devs during the summer by announcing a new revenue sharing model that would give developers up to 100% of revenue for six months in return for launching their
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