Newzoo walks back viral Epic Games Store criticism from analyst saying it “can’t recover” as the latter brings receipts

A Newzoo analyst had recently said the Epic Games Store’s current strategy is unsustainable and that he sees no path to recovery. Newzoo, however, has been forced to backtrack after Epic Games pushed back with its own figures that disproved the analysis, while Newzoo distanced itself from its own senior analyst’s remarks.

For context, Newzoo’s director of market intelligence, Emmanuel Rosier, said in an interview that he doesn’t see how the Epic Games Store can recover or compete with Steam. He also argued that its weekly free games are claimed far more often than they are played. However, this was Rosier’s personal assessment of the storefront, which later drew backlash from Epic Games and an explainer from Newzoo that one could call damage control at best.

Trouble in analyst paradise?

Within a day, Newzoo issued a disclaimer stating that Rosier’s remarks were not backed by the company’s data or analysis, undercutting the same claims that had helped the interview go viral in the first place.

Speaking to PC Gamer, Emmanuel Rosier of Newzoo stated:

“I don’t really see how they can turn that around, because Steam has become so inevitable. The Epic Games Store gets players by giving free games, but people just log in, get the free games, and don’t even play them. You know, it’s almost like collecting games rather than actually playing them.”

Rosier continued:

“The challenge I think Epic is facing is that they have tried to win everywhere in the past few years. They try to win against Steam, they try to win against Apple, against Google Play, and probably they run out of steam on where they cannot fight all these battles at the same time.”

Rosier said Epic is better positioned as a developer than a storefront, and that the company should focus its vision on “Fortnite. You can see they put a lot of thought into Fortnite right now. They are doing everything they can, and I think it’s working better when you look at the state of Fortnite today compared to six months or one year ago.”

Rosier was more positive about Fortnite, but he claimed that “If you look at the Epic Games Store, I don’t see how they can recover at this point.”

Epic's response: stats galore

After the interview, Martin Keely, president and general manager of the Epic Games Store, responded by disputing Rosier’s comments and pointing to Epic’s own figures. He stated:

“The data tells a very different story. In 2025, players spent a record 2.78 billion hours playing third-party games on the Epic Games Store, and player spending on third-party PC games grew 57% to an all-time record of $400 million.”

Newzoo also distanced itself from Rosier’s remarks, stating:

“Remarks about the Epic Games Store published in a recent PC Gamer interview were not supported by Newzoo data or analysis and did not take into account relevant public evidence. These remarks should not be treated as a Newzoo market assessment.”

Epic Games is expected to release a new launcher later this year to appeal to unconvinced PC gamers, many of whom have remained stubbornly within the Steam ecosystem, though its past free game giveaways, including titles like Grand Theft Auto V, have arguably put it on the map, and it continues to look for new ways to reach them, including a reported Linux launch in the future.