The Epic Games Store has released its “Epic Games Store 2025 Performance and 2026 Roadmap,” which outlines its operational performance for 2025 and key strategies for 2026. Epic Games emphasized that it has continued to grow, focusing on third-party games, by prioritizing developer-friendly revenue sharing policies and an aggressive free-to-play game distribution strategy.
Third-party PC game spending rises 57%, reaching an all-time high.
The Epic Games Store has achieved notable success in the third-party PC game sector through ▲aggressive pricing policy ▲free games on PC and mobile ▲Epic Rewards program that provides rewards based on purchase amount in 2025.
Last year, user spending on third-party PC games reached a record high, reaching $400 million (approximately KRW 580 billion), a 57% increase year-over-year. This marks the best performance since the launch of the Epic Games Store. During the same period, players spent a total of 2.78 billion hours playing third-party games, 35% of which came from titles that used their own payment systems.
The number of monthly active users (MAUs) on PCs also reached an all-time high, surpassing 78 million. Total PC playtime is projected to reach 6.65 billion hours in 2025. While overall usage time decreased slightly year-over-year, time spent on third-party games actually increased by 4%. Total user spending on PCs reached $1.16 billion, up 6% year-over-year.
A 100% developer revenue guarantee policy drives growth.
This achievement is attributed to the groundbreaking revenue sharing model introduced in June 2025. The Epic Games Store allows developers to keep 100% of annual net revenue from each product, up to $1 million, and then adopts the existing 88/12 (developer to platform) revenue sharing structure. This is a significantly more favorable arrangement for developers than the industry standard 70/30 split.
In fact, 35% of third-party PC game spending in 2025 will come from games where developers use their own payment systems. This is attributed to the “Epic Web Store,” a feature provided by Epic Games, which allows developers to build their own stores and sell in-game content without incurring commissions.
Free-to-play strategy games are growing, even on Steam.
The Epic Games Store’s free game distribution strategy also contributed to the expansion of the ecosystem. By 2025, free game downloads reached 662 million, and during their free period, more than 77% of all games achieved record-breaking concurrent player counts within the store.
Interestingly, games offered for free on the Epic Games Store also saw an average 40% increase in concurrent Steam users. This suggests that Epic’s free-to-play policy has boosted game awareness, positively impacting sales on other platforms.
Overall platform metrics also improved. PC monthly active users reached an all-time high of over 78 million, and time spent playing third-party games reached 2.78 billion hours, a 4% year-over-year increase. Total player spending on PC reached $1.16 billion, a 6% year-over-year increase.
2026 Roadmap Revealed, Focusing on Social Functions and Platform Enhancements
The Epic Games Store plans to prioritize 2026 over platform advancements and expanded social features. The launcher’s underlying architecture will be redesigned to improve loading speed and stability, and voice chat and game-independent party features will be added in the second quarter. Social features will also be significantly expanded through the creation of a cross-platform community space and enhanced chat functionality.
An Epic Games representative stated, “We are committed to building a fair and open marketplace for both gamers and developers,” and “We will continue to invest in developer support and enhancing user experience.”
Since its launch in 2018, the Epic Games Store has challenged the Steam-dominated PC game distribution market with developer-friendly policies, exclusive titles, and free-to-play games. Its 2025 performance suggests that this differentiation strategy is beginning to yield meaningful results in the market.
