Epic Games Store Reports Record 2025 Third Party Sales Growth, Passes 317M PC Users
Epic has published its Epic Games Store 2025 Year in Review, and while the storefront is still not positioned to dethrone Steam, the metrics show a platform that is clearly scaling in both reach and monetization efficiency. The headline numbers point to stronger third party momentum, higher engagement in external catalog titles, and a clear 2026 roadmap focused on platform fundamentals, particularly the Epic Games Store Launcher architecture rebuild planned for Summer 2026.
The biggest business signal is third party spend. Epic says player spending on third party games grew by 57% year over year in 2025, reaching a record $400 million. Epic also notes this $400 million figure does not include spending in third party titles that use their own payment processing, citing examples such as EA Sports FC 26, Marvel Rivals, Valorant, and Grand Theft Auto V. In those cases, Epic states developers receive 100% of the revenue from those purchases, positioning the store as a distribution layer that can still support developer controlled monetization.
Engagement trends paint a more nuanced picture. Epic reports 2.78 billion hours played in third party games through the Epic Games Store, up from 2.68 billion hours in 2024. However, total gameplay hours across the store declined to 6.65 billion hours in 2025, down from 7.72 billion hours in 2024. That combination suggests third party time share is growing even as overall time spent softens, a pattern that could indicate a maturing user base that is spreading its time across more titles, or simply a normalization effect after prior years of unusually high engagement.
Epic also reports a record high monthly active user peak on PC, hitting 78 million in December 2025. Overall player spending rose 6% to $1.16 billion, up from $1.09 billion in 2024, and Epic says the store now offers more than 6,000 games. These numbers reinforce the idea that the storefront is becoming stickier beyond the weekly free game ritual, even if the broader engagement curve is not strictly linear year over year.
The Free Games Program remains a major acquisition and retention engine. Epic says it gave away 100 games in 2025, with players claiming 662 million copies total. Epic also pegs the total value of claimed titles at $2,316 in United States dollars. Interestingly, Epic claims the free games increased engagement for those titles on Steam as well, framing the program as a discovery amplifier that can spill over into other storefront ecosystems. That is a notable admission because it positions Epic less as a closed garden and more as a funnel that can influence broader PC buying behavior, even when the transaction happens elsewhere.
On the user base side, Epic says Epic Games Store PC users grew from 295 million in 2024 to 317 million in 2025. That is the kind of top of funnel expansion that matters when negotiating publishing partnerships and timed exclusives, especially for developers who prioritize reach alongside revenue share.
Looking forward, Epic’s 2026 plan is centered on rebuilding the underlying launcher architecture and shipping those changes in Summer 2026. The promise is a more responsive launcher that feels better to use, with improved stability and faster load times. Epic also outlines community spaces, expanded social features, voice chat, game independent parties, cross platform libraries between PC and mobile, and regional storefronts with localized discovery. If Epic executes on the launcher rebuild cleanly, it could remove one of the most common friction points users cite, and that would directly support its strategy of converting free game claimers into paying customers in third party catalogs.
Do you personally use Epic Games Store for purchases, or is it still mainly your weekly free games launcher, and what feature would actually convince you to buy more games there?
