Players Use Epic For Freebies But Then Just Go Back To Steam

The vibe around the Epic Games Store is that people love it for the free stuff but don’t use it for much else. That’s an accurate read according to the Los Angeles Times, which recently outlined a pattern of half-baked plans and rushed releases.

Its report cited two former Epic employees who claimed that players love the Epic Games Store for the free games but then immediately go back to Steam after claiming them. The result is an alternative to Valve’s PC gaming storefront that’s still struggling to meaningfully compete.

The company reported that it had 78 million monthly active users last year and earned $400 million from non-Epic games in 2025. Epic global comms director Liz Markman told the Los Angles Times that those metrics were “lower than our growth expectations at launch.”

The company is now trying to bundle its PC gaming storefront and mobile gaming app into a unified platform across different devices, but the ambition behind that plan has drawn scrutiny from people who claim Epic has a tendency to rush things. According to the Los Angeles Times, the company spent millions on contractors to push out the 2024 mobile game store app in just seven months.

Bloomberg recently reported that Epic is also working on a new extraction shooter with Disney which is part of a $1.5 billion partnership. Will that project be able to channel the success of Fortnite or be another victim of Epic’s many side quests, which have included everything from buying Art Station to buying and later selling Bandcamp?

To the degree that Epic succeeds or fails, it will be ordinary employees who face the consequences. Epic recently laid off over 1,000 staff, including one who was terminally ill with brain cancer, after an unexpected drop in Fortnite engagement last year.