Epic free-game strategy pulls crowds — but many head straight back to Steam

Freebies drive traffic, not loyalty

It has been reported that Epic Games’ free-game promotions often produce sharp, short-lived spikes in user activity — and that many of those users promptly return to Valve’s Steam. According to a report in Bloomberg cited by IT Home (IT之家), two former Epic employees told journalists that the Epic Games Store succeeds at drawing attention, but struggles to convert that interest into lasting platform loyalty. Free titles are effective click-bait. Keeping players? That’s a harder sell.

Numbers and platform dynamics

Epic launched the Epic Games Store in 2018 to challenge Steam’s dominance on PC. The tactic worked in acquisition terms: Epic says monthly active users on its PC store have grown to about 78 million. But Steam continues to set new records. The platform hit a concurrent-player high of 42,318,602 on March 22, underscoring how entrenched Valve’s ecosystem remains. Reportedly, many gamers find switching between storefronts inconvenient, so they grab free games and then return to the place where their library and friends are.

What this means for the market

Why does this matter? Platform competition is not just about promotions — it’s about ecosystem, social features, and developer relationships. Epic is reportedly planning heavier investment to close that gap, but can giveaways be turned into genuine platform stickiness? The answer will shape PC gaming’s commercial landscape. And beyond pure market tactics, this rivalry plays out against a backdrop of broader US-China tech tensions and regulatory shifts that affect how foreign platforms operate and market games in China — an important reminder that distribution and geopolitics are increasingly intertwined.