A number of documents pertaining to the Epic-Apple lawsuit have been recently unearthed, and it has now come to light that Epic has spent over $500 million on it’s storefront. Epic’s lawyers mentioned during the proceedings of the court that it’s not yet profitable, and the company doesn’t expect to make any profit until at least 2027 – as reported by PC Gamer.
Of course, it’s not that big of a surprise either – the Epic Games Store is known for spending extraneous amounts of money for exclusives, promising Sony millions of dollars for PC ports. Furthermore, it gives out 2 free games every week – which also costs money. Add in a number of exclusivity deals, and the number seems understandable.
“Epic lost around $181 million on EGS in 2019. Epic projected to lose around $273 million on EGS in 2020. Indeed, Epic committed $444 million in minimum guarantees for 2020 alone, while projecting, even with ‘significant’ growth, only $401 million in revenue for that year. Epic acknowledges that trend will continue in the immediate future: Epic projects to lose around $139 million in 2021.”
“If we take the lower figures, that adds up to an investment on Epic’s part of $493 million since 2019, and Epic itself has acknowledged that “unrecouped costs” will amount to at least $330 million. “At best, Epic does not expect EGS to have a cumulative gross profit before 2027.”
However, Epic’s biggest ace is Fortnite – which has transcended from a battle royale to a pop-culture icon. That does cover Epic’s back to some extent of course, and these continued investments will probably bear a lot of fruit in the future.
