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 ofFortniteto Google, as per the latter’s Google Play Store cut.
Epic has since continued to sink millions into weekly free games and scooping up PC exclusives - including the recentAlan Wake 2andAssassin’s Creed Mirage- while offering users money back on games they buy viathe Epic Rewards scheme. They stepped up their efforts to win over devs during the summer by announcing a new revenue sharing model that wouldgive developers up to 100% of revenue for six monthsin return for launching their PC games exclusively on the Epic Game Store.
Just last month, Epic expanded the deal to devs who bring across their older or Early Access gamesvia the Now on Epic programme, requiring them to bring across their whole catalogue or at least three games released via the likes of Steam or PC Games Pass before the end of October.
In September, Epic announced they would belaying off more than 800 people, blaming the job losses on needing to reach “financial sustainability” after heavy investment in evolving the company and making Fortnite a metaverse, which has been stymied by slower-than-expected growth for its battle royale shooter-turned-digital music festival.
“For a while now, we’ve been spending way more money than we earn,” said CEO Tim Sweeney at the time. (Sweeney, for his part, remains staunchly un-laid-off.) It seems like that is certainly true for the Epic Games Store too, and may remain that way for a while - even as Epic hopes to eventually see it turn a profit.
