Emmanuel Rosier, director of market intelligence at analyst firm Newzoo, says he personally doesn't see the Epic Games Store being able to recover against Steam.
Speaking to PC Gamer, he says, "I don't really see how they can turn that around," adding that "Steam has become so inevitable."
He further explains, "the Epic Games Store, they get players by giving free games, but people just go, they log in, they get the free games, they don't even play them. You know, it's almost like collecting games rather than actually playing them."
Rosier reckons part of the issue with Epic is the company's larger attempts to win on all fronts, saying, "They try to win against Steam, they try to win against Apple, against Google Play, and probably they run out of steam on where they cannot fight all these battles at the same time."
Obviously, Epic is doing well overall thanks to Fortnite, with Rosier saying, "They probably need to focus on what really matters. You can see they put a lot of thought in Fortnite right now. They are doing everything they can, and I think it's working better when you look at the state of Fortnite today compared to six months or one year ago."
He notes that one element of Fortnite that works is that "they are not afraid of other games" overtaking it.
"It's funny because it's a gaming platform that's not even competing any more with other games. Because if you are launching a game, it makes sense to do some marketing within Fortnite," while saying he's "almost surprised" that GTA 6 isn't doing a trailer event within Fortnite.
Epic Games Store vice president and GM Martin Keely issued a statement to PC Gamer in response to Rosier's comments, though, claiming that "the data tells a very different story."
Keely states, "In 2025, players spent a record 2.78 billion hours playing third-party games on the Epic Games Store and player spending on third-party PC games grew 57% to an all-time record $400 million. With the improved launcher that's coming this year, that momentum is only going to accelerate."
Newzoo itself said that "these remarks should not be treated as a Newzoo market assessment," however. And, while the numbers may be getting better on the Epic Games Store, Rosier is correct about one thing: Steam is inevitable.
Valve turned 30 years old today, and for the majority of its life, Steam has been the place to play PC games. And, while the Epic launcher will continue to do well off of the back of it being the only place you can get Fortnite, Steam is almost too big to fall behind. It would take some massive shifts for things to change.
