An upcoming redesign of the Epic Games Store may prove insufficient to break Valve's dominant grip on the PC gaming market, according to industry research firm Newzoo. Epic Games spent much of the year promising a comprehensive overhaul for its launcher, featuring faster browsing speeds, a redesigned interface, and personalized title recommendations. However, market analysts argue that user habits are already too deeply entrenched to yield significant change.
Speaking with PC Gamer, Emmanuel Rosier, director of market intelligence at Newzoo, expressed deep skepticism about the storefront's ability to recover lost ground. Rosier explained that while Epic's ongoing strategy of offering weekly free title giveaways succeeds in drawing visitors, it fails to cultivate meaningful platform engagement. Many players simply log in to claim free offerings like digital collectibles without actually playing them. Furthermore, these giveaways occasionally boost sales on Steam instead, as consumers routinely prefer to maintain their primary gaming libraries on a single launcher.
Rosier also highlighted that Epic's ambitions may have overextended its resources over recent years. By attempting to challenge multiple industry titans simultaneously—waging high-profile legal and economic battles against Steam, Apple, and Google Play—the company has largely exhausted its momentum across individual fronts.
Despite skepticism surrounding its digital storefront, Newzoo offered a much brighter outlook on Epic's role as a game developer. Rosier pointed to Fortnite as a major success story, emphasizing that the title is performing substantially better now than it was six to twelve months ago. The battle royale continues to thrive through ambitious cross-media collaborations, with its recent season showcasing recognizable characters like Sonic the Hedgehog, Pac-Man, Sora from Kingdom Hearts, and Joker from Persona 5.
Looking ahead, Epic is still seeking to expand its retail footprint onto non-PC platforms. Epic Games executive Steve Allison previously noted that Xbox hardware leaders welcomed the concept of hosting the Epic Games Store on their platform, indicating that the third-party store plans to be present on console hardware from day one of any potential integration.
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