Epic says its Game Store has 58M MAUs, up from 56M at the end of 2020 and 32M in 2019; Steam's Valve had 120M MAUs in 2020
Nick Statt / Protocol :
Context & Ripple Effects
This closes a loop on how Epic has disclosed its store's scale since launch. The store that debuted as Fortnite's launcher reported 108M registered accounts in January 2020, then 160M+ PC users with DAUs up 192% YoY a year later — but those were install bases, not engagement. Today's figure converts that funnel language into a monthly-active benchmark, and Epic chose its comparator deliberately: Valve's 120M MAUs for 2020, itself double the 67M Steam reported back in 2017.
The framing matters because it reframes the race Epic keeps losing on headline user counts. Against 120M, Epic's 58M looks like half of Steam — but measured against its own 32M in 2019, the store nearly doubled actives while its registered base grew more slowly, suggesting the Fortnite-installed base is starting to behave like a real storefront audience rather than dormant accounts.
First-order effects
- Epic now has an apples-to-apples engagement metric to counter the 'registered users' critique — 58M MAUs versus Valve's 120M means Epic can claim real traction while conceding Steam still leads on actives by roughly 2x.
- Valve faces the first credible self-reported competitor metric in years; its own last public figures (67M MAUs in 2017, 120M in 2020) came only after Epic began publishing numbers.
Second-order effects
- Publishers weighing exclusivity deals now have an engagement denominator to price them against — Epic's pitch shifts from 'we have 160M accounts' to 'we have half of Steam's actives,' which changes what a third-party exclusive must pay for in foregone reach.
- The gap between Epic's 160M registered users and 58M actives pressures both stores to compete on conversion mechanics — giveaways, free games, wallet incentives — rather than raw install claims.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds, PC storefront competition settles into a two-player structure where Epic buys growth with Fortnite-derived subsidies while Valve defends an entrenched catalog — and disclosure itself becomes a competitive weapon, since each store releases metrics only when they flatter the comparison.
- The durable question the corpus can't yet answer: whether actives convert into third-party spend at rates that make Epic's model sustainable without Fortnite cross-subsidy — the 2017-to-2020 Steam trajectory suggests incumbent scale compounds faster than challenger acquisition.
The trend: PC game distribution is consolidating around a two-storefront contest in which Epic trades Fortnite-subsidized user acquisition against Valve's entrenched catalog, with each side's self-reported metrics setting the terms of debate.