Epic is back in court for its anti-megabody cases, this time Google, where new testimony has revealed that the Epic Games Store is still unprofitable five years after its initial launch in 2018.
This comes directly from Steve Allison, head of the Epic Games Store, on the witness stand (via The Verge), who admitted that the store is still wasting money. He also warned that the original plan for the Epic Games Store to one day recoup some of all PC gaming revenue.
This is a testament to the absolute myth of the Epic Games Store and the guy who championed it, Tim Sweeney. The Epic Games Store’s stated initial purpose was to take on Steam, which Sweeney considered a monopoly and one of the villains (including Apple and Google on mobile) by taking a 30% cut in profits for access to the storefront.
I wouldn’t possibly say that Steam is some sort of monopoly in the PC space, but the way the Epic Games Store has tried to address it has been nothing short of part of a decade of disaster.
It’s not surprising to learn that the Epic Games Store still doesn’t succeed when it A) spends millions on free-to-play games to offer, B) spends millions on timed exclusives, C) promised between 88 and 12 developer favorites. Revenue division.
Epic Games Store
But most importantly, players don’t need to use it because it’s just not a clever boast. Its features are inferior to Steam in each and every way, and it was originally released without fundamental features like a shopping cart or user reviews. The only way most PC gamers now use the Epic Game Store is to log in to get free games and then leave, or maybe buy anything that’s exclusive for a limited time. But part of the time they will be waiting for Steam. It is also not a conceptually intelligent product, it does not offer anything of real price as a valid option for Steam, at the same time that it is a technically inferior product in each and every way.
Again, at this point, it’s not like the Epic Games Store is the new kid on the block. This is the fifth year of its existence, it’s been adding features at the speed of a snail and hasn’t altered its stupidly cherished plans to pay millions and millions to get loose, exclusive games that just don’t move the needle. I can’t call more than one or two games that were exclusive to Epic for a while. Do I think Borderlands for a few months? Godfall lasted a year, which was obviously a wonderful investment. Alan Wake 2 is lately in the works, but Epic acted as editor.
The thing is, it didn’t create a situation between Xbox and PlayStation, “come here to enjoy our great exclusives. “It’s simply a clunkier and slower Steam edition, with confusing and ephemeral offerings and no meaningful explanation for why to replace it entirely. It’s a money pit that Sweeney has thrown the equivalent of thousands of jobs into, given the losses and recent layoffs at Epic, but it’s unlikely he’ll ever abandon it.
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