A games industry analyst has concluded that it is too late for the Epic Games Store to overtake Valve's Steam as the dominant PC games storefront, according to a report published by TheGamer.

The verdict lands after more than six years of Epic's aggressive push into the PC market — a campaign built on an 88/12 revenue split favoring developers, weekly free game giveaways, and high-profile timed exclusivity deals. Despite that sustained investment, Steam retains its commanding lead in PC distribution, and the analyst's assessment suggests the gap is now structural rather than closable.

What does the assessment mean for Epic's storefront strategy?

For studios and publishers, the practical takeaway is portfolio planning. If Steam's dominance is effectively locked in, publishers weighing launch strategies on PC must continue treating Steam as the primary revenue channel, with the Epic Games Store functioning as a secondary outlet rather than a substitute.

Epic's storefront playbook has historically rested on three pillars:

• A revenue split of 88% to developers versus Steam's baseline 70%, moving Steam itself to introduce its own tiered 80/88% structure for high-earning titles
• Consistent weekly free-game promotions intended to drive account creation and habitual use
• Timed exclusivity agreements that brought titles such as high-profile third-party releases to EGS ahead of Steam

The analyst's judgment implies none of these levers has shifted — or can still shift — the underlying market position in Epic's favor.

Why does the lead look permanent?

Steam's incumbency compounds through network effects: user libraries, reviews, workshop content, community features, and discoverability algorithms all deepen with time. Epic has closed feature gaps gradually — achievements, shopping carts, and self-service publishing tools arrived years after launch — but parity in features has not translated into parity in market share.

The assessment frames the race not as one Epic is losing on execution, but as one where the window to change the outcome has closed. That distinction matters for how studios read Epic's future investments in the store: continued, but with different expectations.

What changes for developers and publishers?

For developers, the 88/12 split remains a real financial argument for shipping on EGS, particularly for titles with thin margins. Nothing in the analyst's assessment negates the per-unit economics. What it does challenge is the idea that EGS distribution can anchor a launch on its own.

Publishers negotiating exclusivity deals may find the value proposition harder to justify if EGS cannot deliver comparable audience reach. Multi-platform simultaneous launches, with EGS as one of several channels, look like the more defensible default under this reading of the market.

What signal should studios watch next?

The question worth tracking is whether Epic adjusts its storefront spending — free-game cadence, exclusivity deal volume, or margin incentives — in response to assessments like this one. Epic's next public disclosure of EGS performance metrics will indicate whether the company itself still treats overtaking Steam as an operating goal, or has settled into a permanent challenger position.