Newzoo publicly disowned its own director of market analysis within hours of his interview casting doubt on the Epic Games Store's ability to compete with Valve's Steam, telling PC Gamer that his comments represent his personal opinion rather than the firm's official outlook.

Emmanuel Rosier, Newzoo's director of market analysis, made the remarks in an interview with PC Gamer roughly one month after Epic Games previewed a faster, more personalized version of its digital storefront at Unreal Fest.

What did Rosier actually say?

Rosier argued that Epic Games has spread itself too thin across three simultaneous fronts, and that the recently showcased updates will not reverse that trajectory.

"Steam has become so inevitable," Rosier told PC Gamer. "The Epic Games Store, they get players by giving free games, but people just go, they log in, they get the free games, they don't even play them. You know, it's almost like collecting games rather than actually playing them."

He had not responded publicly to Newzoo's distancing statement at the time of writing.

What does the Epic Games Store overhaul actually change?

Epic previewed the new Epic Games Store build at Unreal Fest roughly one month before Rosier's interview ran. The pitch, as Epic laid it out, centers on faster launcher performance, more personalized storefront layouts and tighter integration with Epic's account layer. Epic positioned the updates as a path to better compete with Steam on discovery and merchandising, areas where EGS has historically trailed.

Rosier told PC Gamer he could not identify a mechanism by which the announced changes would meaningfully shift EGS's competitive position. His skepticism focuses on user behavior rather than feature parity.

Why does Rosier think Epic is overextended?

Rosier framed Epic's current strategy as a multi-front campaign that has diluted execution. The three battlegrounds:

• PC storefront competition with Valve's Steam, which has operated since 2003 and hosts tens of thousands of third-party titles.
• Mobile distribution, where Epic's years-long legal disputes against Apple's App Store and Google Play over store policy and Fortnite availability have absorbed significant resources.
• Continued investment in Fortnite live operations despite what Rosier characterized as a measurable decline in player interest.

"In the end, Epic Games merely spread itself too thin," Rosier told PC Gamer, arguing the strategy has already affected storefront quality.

What does Rosier recommend instead?

Rosier stopped short of calling for EGS to be wound down, but argued that Epic should consolidate engineering and marketing resources around Fortnite. Regular collaborations, in his reading, remain the project's most reliable lever for converting lapsed users into active sessions.

He did not quantify what revenue or engagement uplift Epic should expect from a Fortnite-first posture, or what opportunity cost that would impose on the storefront roadmap.

Where does Newzoo stand?

Newzoo's response to PC Gamer was categorical: Rosier's comments reflect his personal view, not the firm's published research. The framing protects Newzoo's commercial standing as a paid data provider to publishers, platform holders and investors — relationships that often require formal alignment.

The firm has not issued a formal revision of its prior market-sizing work on EGS in response to the controversy, and has not confirmed whether Rosier will continue making on-record public appearances.

What to watch next

The next concrete market signal will come from Epic's own launch metrics for the new EGS build: daily active users, free-to-paid conversion rates and post-reveal retention, rather than the curated storefront feature lists Epic emphasized at Unreal Fest. PC Gamer's original interview remains the primary record of Rosier's full remarks; Newzoo's distancing statement does not retract any of his specific factual claims about Steam's incumbency or Epic's mobile-litigation record.