Epic Says Its Games Store Has 108 Million PC Users

Epic Games reports that its Epic Games Store, through which it aims to provide an alternative to Steam, now has 108 million users. The popular game Fortnite is largely responsible for this.

Epic Games says PC players spent $680 million in the Epic Games Store in the past year. Of that total amount, 251 million dollars was spent on third-party titles, so developers other than Epic Games. That means that the lion’s share of the income is attributable to own Epic titles, especially Fortnite.

It’s not entirely clear how Epic Games arrived at the stated 108 million users; for example, it is unclear whether this is, for example, the number of monthly active users. Valve announced early last year that it had 90 million monthly active users in 2018. Valve has not yet published any figures for 2019.

However, Valve will still have a significant lead in the number of accounts and revenue generated. According to estimates, Steam generated revenue of $4.3 billion in 2017. That amount only applies to the sales of games and does not include the proceeds from microtransactions or DLC.

Epic Games, in which the Chinese Tencent is a major minority shareholder, announced at the end of 2018 that it would launch its own digital store. Epic uses a principle that developers receive 88 percent of the revenue, while Steam is 70 percent. The company has signed agreements for a number of games so that they are at least temporarily available exclusively on the Epic Games Store, such as the game Control and Borderlands 3.