Published , by TJ Denzer
Published , by TJ Denzer
Five years ago, Epic Games launched the Epic Games Store to try to give users a new platform outside of Steam to download and play games. It wanted to capture half the PC gaming martket, but recent reports show that five years in, EGS still isn’t profitable. Epic Games has found itself in a predicament over the last few years doing battle with Apple and Google in court. Apple and Epic may be done with legal proceedings until an appeal, but Epic and Google are still at it, and a recent court appearance forced Epic to share some unfortunate stats.
It was Epic Games Store General Manager Steve Allison that shared word of EGS’s struggle to become profitable over the last five years, as shared by The Verge. This week, Allison took the stand to testify against Google’s unfair practices in listing and delisting apps on Google Play, similar to the case against Apple. In his testimony, Allison answered a number of questions, one of which included sharing that Epic Games Store hadn’t been profitable since it launched in 2018.
The goal of the Epic Games Store is still growth, and Fortnite and Unreal Engine 5 still cover the lion’s share of the company’s income, but Allison’s testimony revealed that Valve is still the dominant force in PC gaming platforms.
Epic Games and Google have been headed for a court date ever since Epic Games goaded Apple into delisting Fortnite by purposely putting an in-game payment option in the mobile app, breaking Apple’s rules about circumventing App Store charges. That saw Apple and Epic go to court over Apple’s apparent domination of the mobile app arena. Although Epic was able to get a win out of the judge deciding that Apple should allow third-party payment options, it lost quite a bit more for its methods of pushing Apple to delist Fortnite, and Google would go on to countersue Epic Games based on the rulings in the Apple case. If that wasn’t bad enough, Epic Games also laid off 900 employees recently as a result of the expenses it has incurred partially due to these court cases.
Epic Games Store not being profitable certainly isn’t helping the company out and one wonders just how long Epic will continue to pour money into the platform. Nonetheless, as the Epic Games v. Google case carries on, stay tuned for more updates here at Shacknews.