Whenever a game is given away for free on the Epic Games Store, concurrent players of that game's Steam version increase by an average of 40%, according to Epic itself.
This is a standout figure in Epic's 2025 year-in-review report, which reflects on the results and direction of its still-developing storefront. You might think it signals that a chunk of people would rather pay for a game on Steam than get it for free on Epic, and for some people, I'm sure that's true – but there is more to the math.
