The Epic Game Store Lost Epic Games 600 Millon Dollars So Far

It’s been a while since we checked in on the Epic Games vs Apple debacle, but not a whole lot has happened: right now we’re in the boring paperwork phase of the lawsuit, where both parties try to collect evidence and arguments for their case and present it to the court. Up until now it hasn’t been very interesting, but recently, PC Gamer noticed that as part of the lawsuit, Epic Games was forced to disclose some… interesting financial information about their company.

Specifically: the Epic Game store has been losing Epic money. A lot of money, in fact.

Here’s the thing: all those exclusives and stuff the Epic Game Store was getting so much flack for purchasing? Those weren’t cheap. Over the past few years, all those exclusives — as well as the free games that Epic routinely offers — has cost the company a whopping 444 million dollars. Now, that money is paid as a sort of advance: the Epic Game store claims 100% of future purchases of those games until that money is eventually “paid back”. But so far, people have only spent 265 million on third-party games on the Epic Game Store: which means all their deals and bargains have lost them 179 million dollars so far.

Granted, when you include first-party sales, the Epic Game Store has made about 700 million… but when you include all the other expenses that go into running a game store, ultimately Epic Games lost a whooping 600 million. That’s the lion’s share of a billion — which is proof of both how far Epic Games has to go to compete with Steam, and of how ludicrously wealthy they have to be in order to be able to afford losses like that.

Heck, they can do more than afford it: Epic CEO Tim Sweeney even took to Twitter to brag about it.
 

That’s right! And it has proven to be a fantastic success in reaching gamers with great games and a fantastic investment into growing the business!

I have to admit, I’d love to be a fly on the wall at an Epic games board meeting, because their business strategy and goals so far seem a bit… obtuse. But whatever they pertain to be, I imagine a lot still rides on this Apple lawsuit, which is still underway.

I guess we’ll have to wait and see.