Epic Games Store 2026: $400M Record, 317M Users [AU]

Epic Games Store by the Numbers: 2025 Year in Review

Epic’s annual Year in Review, published in February 2026, painted a picture of a platform that has crossed important monetisation thresholds even while its headline active-user count plateaued. According to Games Market Global’s analysis, total revenue from the Epic Games Store reached .16 billion in 2025, up 6 per cent from .09 billion in 2024 and 22 per cent from 0 million in 2023. The figure includes Fortnite, Rocket League, and all first-party Epic titles alongside the broader third-party catalogue.

The standout metric was third-party game spending: 0 million in 2025, an all-time record and a 57 per cent jump from the 0 million recorded in 2024. That figure had actually declined year-on-year in 2024, making the 2025 rebound strategically significant – it suggests Epic’s combination of the expanded free-games programme, its developer-friendly revenue split, and new exclusive content windows is finally converting browsers into buyers.

On the user side, the store’s registered PC customer base reached 317 million by end of 2025, up from 295 million the previous year. Including console and mobile accounts, total cross-platform Epic accounts surpassed 972 million globally. Monthly active users on PC averaged 67 million across 2025, with a record 78 million MAU recorded in December 2025 – a figure driven in part by holiday free-game promotions. Daily active users averaged 31 million, down 2 per cent year-on-year, which Epic attributes to changing play-session patterns rather than churn.

Third-Party Spending Surges 57%: What Drove the Record

The 57 per cent jump in third-party spending did not happen in isolation. Epic made a structural change to its revenue-share model in June 2025 that fundamentally altered the economics for independent and mid-tier developers. Under the updated terms, developers keep 100 per cent of their first million in annual net revenue per product before the standard 88/12 split applies. That means a successful indie title generating 0,000 per year pays Epic nothing – a stark contrast to Steam’s 30 per cent base cut on every dollar from dollar one.

The policy attracted a wave of new releases. Epic’s catalogue crossed 6,000 games during 2025, and the State of Unreal 2026 presentation revealed Epic has planned more than 30 developer collaborations for 2026, with additional deals in negotiation for 2027. The collaborations include curated marketing, in-game crossover events, and prominent store placement – arrangements that have proved effective for the mid-market segment that cannot compete with Activision-Blizzard or Ubisoft on pure advertising spend.

“Epic’s decision to forgo revenue on the first million dollars is structurally the most aggressive move any major PC storefront has made since Steam introduced user reviews in 2013,” said Dr. Joost van Dreunen, adjunct professor at NYU Stern School of Business and author of One Up. “It doesn’t just attract new games – it changes which games get made, because developers can recoup production costs before sharing anything with a platform.”

Total gameplay hours on the store were 6.65 billion in 2025, down 14 per cent year-on-year. However, hours spent specifically in third-party titles rose 4 per cent to 2.78 billion, which Epic argues demonstrates that its non-Fortnite ecosystem is growing even as overall session lengths shorten across the industry. The divergence between spending growth (+57%) and engagement decline (-14%) is an industry-wide pattern: gamers are spending more per hour on fewer, higher-quality titles.

Epic v. Google: How an Australian Legal Win Reshapes Mobile Gaming

The most consequential development for Epic’s long-term platform ambitions happened not in a revenue spreadsheet but in a California courtroom. The Epic v. Google antitrust saga – begun in 2020, decided by a federal jury in December 2023, upheld by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in July 2025, and effectively settled in March 2026 – has forced Google to fundamentally redesign how the Play Store operates.

In the November 2025 proposed settlement, Google agreed to reduce its take on Play Store purchases to between 9 and 20 per cent – down from the flat 30 per cent fee that Ars Technica declared “well and truly dead.” The settlement also committed Google to allow third-party app stores, including the Epic Games Store, to register as approved stores on Android in all regions of the world. The deal was completed in March 2026, and Fortnite returned to the Google Play Store worldwide by March 19, 2026 – a moment Tim Sweeney had been working toward since Epic deliberately triggered the 2020 ban by launching a direct payment bypass. The full legal history is documented in the Epic Games v. Google Wikipedia entry, updated through April 2026.

The October 2024 injunction, which runs until November 1, 2027, prohibits Google from requiring developers to use Google Play Billing for in-app payments in the United States. A parallel compliance deadline of July 2026 applies to the requirement that competing app stores must be distributable through the Play Store itself. Judge James Donato in April 2026 scheduled a summer evidentiary hearing he described as the “final act” of the case. A detailed April 2026 case update from Stash.gg explains the two possible outcomes: approve the settlement or revert to the stricter original permanent injunction.

As AP News reported in March 2026, the settlement reduces Google’s commission to 9–20 per cent and opens a global pathway for third-party stores. For Australian gamers, the immediate benefit is the return of Fortnite to Android without a 30 per cent overhead tax on in-game purchases – a saving that Epic can theoretically pass on as lower V-Buck pricing or redirected to content investment. “The long game here is that Epic now has a legal template for challenging any platform that uses its gatekeeper position to extract monopoly rents,” said Lewis Ward, research director for gaming at IDC. “What worked against Google in San Francisco can be cited in regulatory proceedings globally, including in Australia under the ACCC’s digital platform investigations.”

The Free Games Machine: 662 Million Claims in 2025

Epic’s weekly free-game programme remains its most effective user-acquisition tool, and the numbers from 2025 are extraordinary. According to GameWatcher’s 2026 free games tracker, gamers claimed 662 million titles through the programme during the year, with an average claimed value of ,316 per player across the year’s offerings. Epic reports that over 77 per cent of games set an all-time peak concurrent user record during the week of their free offer – meaning the promotional window doesn’t just give away copies, it demonstrably introduces players to titles they then play, discuss, and recommend.

The programme has continued at pace into 2026. January delivered Total War: Three Kingdoms, Bloons TD 6, and the Styx duology. February brought Nobody Wants to Die, widely considered one of the most narratively ambitious noir games of the past decade. May saw Tomb Raider I–III Remastered Starring Lara Croft offered at no cost for a week. As of the week of June 18–25, 2026, The Operator is freely available – joined concurrently by Citizen Sleeper and ROBOBEAT.

For Australian players, these giveaways carry particular weight given local pricing pressures. Australian digital game prices have historically tracked at the upper end of regional comparisons due to currency conversion and regional pricing band decisions by publishers. The Epic free programme sidesteps that entirely: a claimed game on an Australian Epic account is free regardless of the AU dollar exchange rate.

“No subscription, no strings – just a game in your library every Thursday,” said Serkan Toto, founder of Tokyo-based gaming consultancy Kantan Games. “Steam has never matched it and probably can’t without alienating the publishers that define its catalogue. Epic can afford the experiment because Fortnite funds it. That’s a structural moat that goes underappreciated.”

Developer Economics: The 88/12 Split in Context

The Epic Games Store launched in December 2018 with an 88/12 revenue split – developers keep 88 per cent, Epic takes 12 – as an explicit challenge to Steam’s then-standard 30 per cent cut. Steam subsequently introduced a tiered structure (30% on the first M, 25% from M–M, 20% above M), but the comparison still favours Epic for the vast majority of titles that never reach Steam’s upper tiers.

The June 2025 addition of 100 per cent revenue share on the first million per product per year makes Epic materially more attractive for Australian independent studios. According to the Interactive Games and Entertainment Association (IGEA), Australia produced over 980 commercially released games in the 12 months to March 2026. The overwhelming majority of those titles earn under million per year in gross revenue – placing them squarely in the bracket where Epic charges zero commission.

The practical arithmetic is significant. An Australian studio generating 0,000 per year on Steam pays approximately 0,000 in platform fees (30 per cent). On the Epic Games Store, that same revenue under the current terms would cost nothing in platform fees for the first year, then 12 per cent (,000) on subsequent years once the million per-product threshold is no longer in play. Total savings over three years at the same revenue level: approximately 8,000 – enough to fund an additional team member or a substantial marketing campaign.

Platform Improvements Unveiled at State of Unreal 2026

At the State of Unreal 2026 presentation held in June, Epic outlined a series of platform improvements coming to the store. The headline announcement was a forthcoming new layout designed to modernise usability, with Epic describing it as a significant redesign of the browsing and discovery experience. The current interface has drawn consistent criticism for its relative sparseness compared to Steam’s review system, wishlist functionality, and community features.

Epic also confirmed the 30 developer collaborations planned for 2026 are not simple exclusivity windows but deeper integrations involving co-marketing, in-game events, and storefront placement packages. Several of these collaborations are expected to be announced before the end of Q3 2026.

The store has also been resolving a backlog of feature updates. Epic noted that features originally targeted for April 2026 were shifted to May and June because development resources were redirected to support online infrastructure requirements for new game launches. The transparency around the scheduling slip is unusual for a major platform and reflects Epic’s ongoing effort to communicate roadmap realities to developers using the publishing tools.

Epic vs. Steam: The Market Share Reality

Despite its growth trajectory, the Epic Games Store remains a distant second to Steam in PC gaming market share. Industry estimates consistently place Steam at approximately 74 per cent of the PC digital game market by transaction volume, with Epic at around 3 per cent – though the gap narrows when measured purely by third-party game spending rather than total revenue (which includes Steam’s massive back-catalogue sales and Steam hardware).

Steam’s concurrent user peaks have continued to climb in 2026. The competitive dynamic has not fundamentally shifted since Epic launched the store in 2018, despite billions of dollars in investment in exclusives, free games, and developer incentives. However, the Epic v. Google legal framework has opened a second front: if Epic wins similar concessions from mobile platform gatekeepers globally, the store’s ability to aggregate mobile, PC, and console users on a single account could prove more valuable than PC market share alone suggests.

Metric Epic Games Store (2025) Steam (estimated 2025)
PC Market Share ~3% ~74%
Registered PC Users 317 million ~120–150 million active accounts
Monthly Active Users (peak) 78 million (Dec 2025) ~137 million (2024 peak)
Games in Catalogue 6,000+ 50,000+
Base Revenue Share (Developer) 88% (100% first M/yr) 70–80% (tiered by revenue)
Annual Platform Revenue .16 billion Not publicly disclosed (~–10B est.)
Free Games Programme Yes (weekly) No equivalent

What Australian Gamers Can Expect From Epic in 2026

Australia’s gaming market sits in an interesting position relative to Epic’s global strategy. The country has a well-established broadband infrastructure (the NBN), a young median gaming population, and strong Fortnite player numbers that make it a core market for Epic’s first-party revenue. The return of Fortnite to Android via the Google settlement has particular relevance for Australian mobile gamers: Android holds approximately 50 per cent of the Australian smartphone market, and Fortnite’s absence from the Play Store since 2020 created a meaningful access gap.

The weekly free-games programme will continue through 2026 with no sign of Epic scaling it back. The programme costs Epic real money – publishers are compensated for their titles – but the company has publicly committed to it as a long-term user-acquisition strategy. Australian players receive the same weekly offerings as all other regions, and the Epic launcher is available on Windows, macOS, and Android, covering the major platforms Australian gamers use.

For Australian developers, the 100 per cent revenue threshold up to million represents a meaningful incentive to publish on EGS, either exclusively or day-and-date with other storefronts. Epic does not require exclusivity to participate in its developer programme, though it has historically offered marketing support to titles that accept a timed exclusive window. The new layout announced at State of Unreal 2026 is expected to improve discovery – a critical issue for Australian studios that lack the marketing budgets of multinational publishers.

Free Games Schedule: What’s Available Now and Coming Next

Period Free Games Category
June 18–25, 2026 The Operator Strategy
June 18–25, 2026 Citizen Sleeper RPG / Narrative
June 18–25, 2026 ROBOBEAT Rhythm FPS
June 11–18, 2026 Warhammer 40,000: Speed Freeks Action Racing
June 11–18, 2026 The Ouroboros King Roguelike Strategy
June 4–11, 2026 Rogue Waters + Songs of Conquest Roguelike / Strategy
May 21–28, 2026 Tomb Raider I–III Remastered + Down in Bermuda Action / Puzzle

The Competitive Landscape: What Epic Is Pressuring

The Epic Games Store’s rise – and its legal victories – are exerting competitive pressure across every major digital distribution ecosystem. Valve has not dramatically altered Steam’s base revenue terms since 2018, when the tiered model was introduced partly in response to Epic’s launch. However, Steam’s community features, review system, workshop, and trading card economy create a switching-cost moat that free games alone cannot overcome.

GOG, which went independent via a million management buyout in December 2025, competes on DRM-free ownership as a differentiator. The Epic Games Store does use DRM, tying purchased games to an Epic account, which has been a persistent criticism among Australian gamers concerned about long-term ownership. GOG’s independence removes a potential acquisition concern, but its catalogue remains dramatically smaller than both Steam and Epic’s 6,000-plus titles.

The broader subscription context matters as well. Xbox Game Pass, priced at AU.99 per month for PC Game Pass, offers access to a rotating library without ownership. Epic’s free games programme offers permanent ownership with no ongoing cost. For price-sensitive Australian gamers, the comparison is stark: Epic has given away more than 100 games in 2025 and 2026 that remain on the recipient’s account indefinitely, regardless of whether they remain free.

“Epic has created the most interesting loyalty programme in gaming and most people don’t think of it that way,” said Dr. Renée Richardson Gosline, senior lecturer at MIT Sloan. “Free-to-keep is psychologically distinct from subscription access. When a game is yours forever, you attach to the platform that gave it to you. That’s worth more than a discount.”

Analyst Predictions: Where Epic Games Store Goes From Here

With strong 2025 data, a settled Android legal battle, and a new platform layout on the way, analysts have turned bullish on Epic’s 2026–2028 trajectory. Here are five predictions based on current trends and announced roadmap items:

Third-party spending will cross 0 million in 2026. The 57 per cent jump in 2025 was driven by catalogue expansion, the 100 per cent revenue threshold policy, and improved discovery. With 30-plus developer collaborations now confirmed for 2026 and a new layout improving conversion, another 25 per cent growth is conservative.
Fortnite’s Android return will add 5–10 million MAU to Epic’s mobile base. Fortnite had 116 million iOS users and 73 million exclusive iOS players before its 2020 removal. Android re-access via a clean Play Store listing – no sideloading friction – will reactivate a meaningful slice of that audience.
Epic will announce a social layer or review system before end of 2026. The incoming platform redesign hinted at in the State of Unreal presentation suggests Epic is aware its community features gap with Steam is its largest retention problem. A review or recommendation system is the most likely addition.
The summer 2026 Epic v. Google hearing will result in injunction maintenance rather than settlement approval. Judge Donato’s expressed scepticism about the proposed settlement serving public interest makes it more likely the original October 2024 permanent injunction – which is stricter – remains operative through its November 2027 sunset.
Australian developer EGS publishing will increase materially in 2026–2027. The combination of zero-fee first-M terms and a broader catalogue improving Australian title visibility gives local studios compelling economics. Expect an increase in Australian-origin titles appearing in Epic’s weekly promotions.

Historical Context: Epic’s Seven-Year Bet on the Storefront

When Epic Games launched its store in December 2018, the reaction from the gaming community was largely hostile. Critics pointed to a thin feature set – no shopping cart, no review system, no mod support – and an aggressive exclusivity strategy that removed titles from Steam after announcing deals. Epic’s CEO Tim Sweeney was unapologetic, arguing that Steam’s 30 per cent cut was an extractive fee with no legitimate cost basis.

Seven years later, the strategic bet has delivered mixed but improving results. Epic has not displaced Steam, and its overall PC market share remains in the low single digits. But it has achieved something arguably more significant: it forced the entire PC gaming distribution industry to justify its pricing models. Steam’s tiered structure, GOG’s DRM-free proposition, and the ongoing Epic v. Apple legal saga (which resulted in Apple being required to allow alternative payment links in US App Store apps) all trace at least partial causality to Epic’s willingness to absorb billions in losses to establish a competitive position.

Sweeney himself celebrated the Supreme Court’s October 2025 ruling against Google on social media: “The Supreme Court has thrown out Google’s stay request. Starting October 22, developers will be legally entitled to steer US Google Play users to out-of-app payments without fees, scare screens,