Epic Games Store Feature

The Epic Games Store is Still Unprofitable Five Years Later

Epic Games is still struggling to make its storefront profitable. According to new details shared via the ongoing Google antitrust lawsuit, Epic’s investment into exclusives, lower revenue share for published games and free weekly games hasn’t panned out as well as the company expected. Five years later, the Epic Game Store is still unprofitable.

We know that Epic Games was spending millions on securing exclusives and purchasing deals for weekly free games but the store seems to be a much larger money sink than expected. During the latest hearings revolving around Google’s antitrust lawsuit, Epic Games’ general manager Steve Allison confirmed that the platform has yet to make a profit.

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Keep in mind that Epic runs things a little differently compared to Steam. For example, Valve takes 30% from game sales in its revenue split. Epic Games, however, only takes 12%. The company has also utilized its bank account to purchase exclusive deals with publishers which sees select PC titles only launch on the Epic Games Store. Alan Wake 2, for example, is one of those games.

So with the lower revenue split and these expensive deals, the Epic Games Store is spending more money than it is making. This has hit Epic hard in the past. In September, the company announced it would lay off around 830 employees totalling 16% of its workforce.

Epic also recently increased the price of Fortnite V-Bucks to help level the field on in-game purchases.

At the moment it doesn’t seem as if all of Epic’s business decisions are paying off. The company’s main goal is to grow its user base but the general sentiment still remains that the launcher is just an inconvenience. PC gamers have yet to adopt the Epic Game Store launcher as openly as Steam and even with the exclusives and free games, it seems users are still spending money on Steam instead.

Source: The Verge

Marco is the owner and founder of GLITCHED. South Africa’s largest gaming and pop culture website. GLITCHED quickly established itself with tech and gaming enthusiasts with on-point opinions, quick coverage of breaking events and unbiased reviews across its website, social platforms, and YouTube channel.

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