Players Use Epic For Free Games But Then Just Go Back To Steam, Former Employees Claim

TL;DR

The Epic Games Store is profitable, but a new report based on internal documents and former employee accounts reveals a persistent challenge: users frequently claim its free weekly games only to return to Steam as their primary platform. This highlights the immense difficulty of disrupting Steam's entrenched market dominance, even with a multi-billion dollar strategy of exclusives and giveaways.

What Happened

A new investigative report has pulled back the curtain on the internal metrics and strategic anxieties at the Epic Games Store (EGS), revealing a platform that is financially viable yet struggling to convert user interest into lasting loyalty. Despite giving away over 2,500 free games worth an estimated $20,000 since its 2018 launch, internal data reportedly shows a significant portion of its user base treats it as a secondary library, with Steam remaining their default gaming destination.

Key Facts

• According to a Kotaku report published on April 15, 2026, internal Epic documents and former employees state the Epic Games Store is profitable, but faces significant challenges in user retention and engagement.
• Epic has spent billions of dollars since 2018 on its strategy, which includes securing timed exclusives for major PC titles and offering a free game every week to build its user base.
• The report claims users often "claim and quit"—logging in to add the free game to their library but not making purchases or using the platform as a primary launcher.
• A key internal metric, "first-party share of engagement," reportedly showed that a substantial majority of users' PC gaming time was spent outside of the EGS ecosystem, even among those who claimed free games.
• The store's development has been hampered by the slow rollout of basic features (like a shopping cart, which took over two years to implement) compared to the mature Steam platform.
• Epic's strategy is heavily subsidized by the colossal revenue from Fortnite, which has bankrolled the store's aggressive customer acquisition costs.
• The report suggests that for many in the industry, the EGS is seen as a necessary "second storefront" to mitigate Steam's dominance, but not yet as a true competitor for user primacy.

Breaking It Down

The report confirms what industry observers have long suspected: profitability and market disruption are two very different goals. Epic Games Store has achieved the former by leveraging its Fortnite war chest, but the latter—actually shifting user habits and platform loyalty—remains frustratingly out of reach. The "claim and quit" phenomenon is a direct symptom of a strategy that successfully buys attention but has so far failed to purchase allegiance. Users are rational actors; they will gladly accept hundreds of dollars in free software without feeling compelled to alter their entrenched digital routines, which for nearly two decades have been built around Steam's community features, workshop support, and vast library management tools.

The internal metric of "first-party share of engagement" reportedly revealed that even among users who claimed free games, the majority of their PC gaming time was spent on other platforms, primarily Steam.

This single data point is the core of Epic's strategic dilemma. Engagement is the lifeblood of any platform. It drives discovery, community, and repeat purchasing. If users are not spending time within the EGS client, they are not browsing its store, seeing its recommendations, or interacting with friends there. This creates a vicious cycle: lower engagement justifies slower development of social and community features, and the lack of those features, in turn, gives users less reason to engage. Epic broke the initial barrier of installation through free games, but it has not created a compelling daily reason for users to stay.

The financial reality is that Epic's strategy is a monumental bet on the long game, subsidized by one of the most successful products in entertainment history. The billions spent on exclusives and giveaways are not intended to turn a profit in a traditional 3-5 year window. They are an immense customer acquisition cost, akin to a tech startup burning venture capital to gain market share. The question is whether this capital can eventually build a self-sustaining ecosystem, or if the EGS will remain a profitable but perpetually secondary venue—a "cost of doing business" for Tim Sweeney's crusade against what he views as Steam's excessive 30% revenue share.

What Comes Next

The immediate future will be defined by Epic's attempts to bridge the gap between user acquisition and user engagement. The profitability milestone is significant, as it suggests the current level of investment is sustainable for the parent company, allowing the store fight to continue indefinitely. However, the next phase must move beyond the checkbook.

1. The Feature Roadmap: Watch for accelerated development of platform-defining social features. Epic has been gradually adding long-requested tools, but the pace will need to increase. A more robust modding framework (to compete with Steam Workshop), deeper social integration, and innovative discovery tools are essential to give users a reason to open the client beyond a weekly giveaway.
2. Exclusive Strategy Evolution: The report may lead to a recalibration of Epic's exclusive deals. Securing blockbuster titles like Grand Theft Auto VI for a timed period would be a seismic event, but we may also see a pivot toward securing permanent exclusivity for major new IPs or investing more heavily in second-party development to create must-have titles native to EGS.
3. Publisher and Developer Incentives: Epic will likely enhance its developer revenue share (the famed 88/12 split) with more tools and marketing support to ensure high-quality titles continue to launch on EGS, even without exclusivity money. Making the store a genuinely better commercial proposition for developers, not just a lucrative one-time deal, is key to building a robust catalog.
4. The 2026 Holiday Season: The end-of-year sales period will be a critical bellwether. It will test whether Epic's engaged user base has grown enough to drive significant full-price and sale purchases independent of the free game strategy, indicating a true shift in consumer behavior.

The Bigger Picture

This story is a microcosm of two powerful, conflicting trends in digital technology. The first is Platform Entrenchment and Network Effects. Steam's dominance is not just about features; it's about the immense inertia of an established network. Friends lists, achievement tracking, and community forums create a sticky ecosystem that is incredibly difficult to migrate away from, proving that in tech, first-mover advantage, when executed well, can create a near-impenetrable moat.

Conversely, Epic's campaign exemplifies the Subsidized Disruption Model, where a cash-rich entity from one sector (in this case, Fortnite from gaming-as-a-service) funds a frontal assault on an established market. We see this with Amazon in retail, Google in various software sectors, and Meta in VR. The playbook is consistent: absorb massive losses to gain users, then monetize later. The Epic Games Store experiment is testing the limits of this model against one of the stickiest consumer platforms ever built, asking whether pure financial power can ever truly overcome the gravitational pull of deep-seated network effects.

Key Takeaways

• Profitable, But Not Paramount: The Epic Games Store has reached profitability, proving its business model is sustainable, but it remains a secondary platform for the majority of its users, failing to dislodge Steam as the primary PC gaming hub.
• The "Claim and Quit" Conundrum: Epic's strategy of free weekly games has successfully driven massive user account creation but has not translated into sustained engagement or platform loyalty, highlighting the difference between acquisition and habitual use.
• Fortnite-Funded Fight: The store's multi-billion dollar war chest, entirely subsidized by the revenue from Fortnite, allows Epic to continue this long-term competitive battle indefinitely, making this a unique clash of titans rather than a typical market competition.
• The Engagement Gap is Key: The central challenge for Epic is no longer attracting users but creating an ecosystem compelling enough to increase "first-party share of engagement." Future success hinges on building social and community features that rival Steam's, not just its catalog.