It’s been well over a year since I last took a look at the performance of the Epic Games Store and a surprising amount of information has come out since then. Literally, mere months after I wrote that piece, the Epic Games v. Apple trial began and a surprising amount of incredible information regarding both the Epic Games Store and the games industry itself was leaked within days. I was tempted to write a new piece almost as soon as all this information came to the forefront but decided to hold off since I believed that it was too soon since I last spoke of the Epic Games Store. Now, in 2022, we’ve received our annual year in review from the Epic Games Store and I thought it might be interesting to take a look at all of this information and try to answer the question on whether the Epic Games Store is a viable competitor to Steam.
Before we get to the really juicy information that was released by the Epic Games v. Apple trial, I want to take a look at the stats that Epic Games provided themselves in their “2021 Year in Review“. As you can see in the charts below, the Epic Games Store has seen growth overall from 2020 to 2021. They’ve managed to acquire another 34 million customers, increase their MAU by 6 million, raise the amount spent on the store by $140 million with third-party games contributing $35 million of that increase. That’s not to mention the continued growth of their social media which, while not anywhere near as dramatic as in 2020, has continued to attract new followers.
The three info charts provided by Epic Games for their Epic Games Store from 2019 to 2021
To be fair to Epic, growth is always a good thing but I have my reservations about how truly great these statistics are. For one, we can see that the store now has over 194 million users but has only managed to gross $840 million. To break it down even further, that’s only about $4.33 spending per customer which doesn’t seem particularly impressive to me, especially once we see how much Epic is spending on the store in a bit. I personally blame the Epic Games Store’s obsession on handing out free games weekly, a practise they are continuing in 2022, for the poor consumer spending but that’s only my opinion.
Now let’s discuss the information that was made public during Epic Games v. Apple. Keep in mind that this information was provided last May so it’s entirely possible that some of it may have changed since then but it’s nonetheless a fascinating insight into the background of the Epic Games Store. The first and most alarming thing about the viability of the Epic Games Store is how much money Epic Games have already lost. It was revealed that the Epic Games Store lost Epic Games about $181 million in 2019 while Epic expected to lose around $273 million in 2020. Not a very good look for a store that wants Steam to match their split of 88/12.
As part of the trial we got an incredibly interesting chart detailing the free games they gave away between December 2018 to September 2019, how many people downloaded the games, how much they spent on each game, how many new Epic accounts were created by these free games and the percentage of people who were new to Epic. What really surprised me about this list was how little Epic Games were paying each publisher to give away their game for free. The range of spending varies from $1.5 million to, excluding Metro: 2033 Redux being given away for $0 for some reason, $45,000. Still, throughout this time period Epic Games spent $11,658,000 on securing these free games.
However, when it comes to why the Epic Games Store is losing so much money, it’s clear that it’s because of their policy of exclusives. Based on the chart below, you can see that Epic Games split their exclusivity deals into three tiers which are basically large, medium and small exclusivity deals. You can see that the vast majority of games that Epic Games pay to have released exclusively on their store end up losing money for Epic. These losses are staggeringly immense with these deals costing Epic hundreds of millions of dollars.
The answer of whether the Epic Games Store is a viable competitor to Steam in 2022 is complicated but I ultimately believe that it currently isn’t. Epic are losing an absurd amount of money and it seems quite bizarre that they expect other companies such as the Valve Corporation and Apple Inc. to adopt their practises for a model that is so far unproven to be profitable. Still, I hope that we see the Epic Games Store improve and eventually become that viable competitor to Steam that I want it to be. Let me know your thoughts on whether you think the Epic Games Store is a viable competitor to Steam in 2022, what you think about the stats that Epic Games have shared, the information that was leaked during Epic Games v. Apple, your thoughts on the Epic Games Store overall and any additional information you might have on the topic.
Thanks for reading and if you wish to seek any of the titles I mentioned, don’t hesitate to use amazon.co.uk or amazon.com for all of your needs! Also feel free to follow my curator page on Steam “JRPG Reviews” for thoughts and opinions on any JRPGs that I play and my YouTube channel “Victory Achieved Gaming” where I guide my friend through challenging games.