Epic Games Store faces skepticism over ability to compete with Steam

Industry analysts are expressing skepticism regarding the Epic Games Store's ability to compete with Valve's Steam. Emmanuel Rosier, director of market intelligence at Newzoo, suggests that Steam has become 'inevitable' and that Epic's strategy of offering free weekly games often results in users merely collecting titles rather than actively playing them. Rosier noted that these giveaways can even inadvertently boost Steam sales as players prefer to keep their libraries on a single platform.

Analysts suggest Epic may be overextending its resources by attempting to compete simultaneously against Steam in the PC market, as well as against Apple and Google in the mobile sector. While Epic has announced plans to overhaul its PC launcher to improve speed and user experience, experts question if these technical updates are sufficient to reverse declining user loyalty.

In contrast to the outlook for the storefront, there is optimism regarding Epic's performance as a game developer, specifically concerning Fortnite. Analysts suggest that focusing on the Fortnite ecosystem may be a more viable path forward than attempting to dismantle Steam's market dominance. Epic Games has contested the negative analysis, citing record-breaking data for 2025, including 2.78 billion hours played on third-party games and $400 million in third-party PC game spending.