After eight years, the Epic Games Store has established itself as a viable alternative to Steam. Valve’s storefront is still the largest digital marketplace for PC games, but Epic says that it never aimed to dethrone it. Epic Games Store general manager Steve Allison says that the company is aware of this and instead strives to co-exist in this ecosystem alongside Steam.
“Steam is a huge part of the PC ecosystem,” Allison said to Games Industry Biz. “It’s not going away. We’re not going to topple Steam. PC gaming, by virtue of the competition and by virtue of us existing, has grown. That growth, per se, may or may not be attributed to all of us competing, but players are shifting a lot of their hobby from consoles to PC. Of course, we’d be thrilled to be 50% or more market share of PC.”
Even with Epic estimating that it attracts roughly a 35 – 40% share of monthly active users, it believes the storefront accounts for only 5 – 8% of spending. That’s not an insignificant sum, as Epic posted its year-in-review stats this week and confirmed that over $1 billion was spent in the store throughout 2025. Epic plans to attract more PC gamers, starting with a complete overhaul of the Epic Games Store that should deliver a faster, smoother shopping experience.
Other plans include regional storefronts to highlight locally produced games and a strategy to leverage Fortnite’s popularity to boost sales of third-party games. Partners for the program include Capcom, Genshin Impact’s miHoYo, Dave the Diver’s MintRocket, and Crimson Desert’s Pearl Abyss, and players can expect to receive free Fortnite cosmetics as part of this promotion.
