The American game company Epic Games has vigorously developed its own PC platform Epic Games Store in recent years. By increasing the share ratio, giving away free games for a long time, and striving for exclusive works, it is trying to shake Steam's dominance in the field of PC digital distribution. However, the latest annual data shows that the payment performance of third-party games on the platform is far less impressive than user growth.
According to data compiled by Epic in its year-end reviews over the years, between 2019 and 2024, the total consumption of third-party games on the Epic game platform only increased by about 1.6%, almost standing still. Third-party game revenue was US$251 million in 2019. It climbed to US$355 million in 2022, an increase of 18% year-on-year in 2021, but then declined for two consecutive years: it fell to US$310 million in 2023, a decrease of 13%, and fell by another 18% in 2024. In the end, it was only US$4 million more than in 2019. In stark contrast, during the same period, the number of Epic PC users increased from 108 million in 2019 to 295 million in 2024, with a five-year cumulative growth of 173%.
This strong contrast means that a large number of new users are more likely to register accounts to receive free games rather than continue to consume on the platform. In the past few years, Epic has attracted attention through high-profile exclusive works such as "Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 1+2", "Tetris Effect", "Kingdom Hearts" and "Alan Killer 2". However, reports pointed out that these exclusives have limited impact on overall third-party payment. At present, there are still only a few masterpieces such as "Alan Killer 2" that have not yet been launched on the Steam platform.
In terms of user experience, the Epic Games launcher is often criticized by players for being slow and not as complete as Steam. Although many core functions have been completed in recent years, the overall completion is still considered to be significantly behind its competitors. At the same time, "Fortnite" ("Fortnite") in-app purchases are regarded as an important pillar of the Epic store's overall revenue: in every statistical year, third-party game revenue is less than half of the platform's total revenue, and this proportion has continued to decline since 2022. Epic store total revenue was approximately US$680 million in 2019, and has increased to approximately US$1.09 billion in 2024, an overall growth of approximately 60%.
The focus of the industry is whether there is still room for adjustment in Epic's current strategy of "high subsidies, strong exclusivity, and long-term game delivery". Epic is expected to release its 2025 annual operations summary in the next few weeks. The outside world generally hopes to use this report to further observe whether there will be directional changes in the platform's product strategy, sharing policy, and user monetization path.