Epic CEO: Valve Lost Billions by Missing Fortnite, League of Legends, and Genshin Impact

There are few things more satisfying in the games business than watching a competitor leave money on the table. Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney, speaking at the Unreal Fest conference this week, laid out exactly how much Valve has cost itself by sticking to a walled-garden approach.

Valve’s Steam platform missed out on tens of billions of dollars in revenue by failing to attract some of the biggest games in the world — including Fortnite, Riot Games’ entire catalog, and Genshin Impact — Sweeney said. He made the comments during and after a presentation introducing what he called the “Team Open” initiative, a push for a more interconnected, cross-platform gaming ecosystem.

When a reporter asked why Valve, which dominates PC game distribution, would have any reason to join such an alliance, Sweeney was blunt.

“Let’s see. Steam’s PC business is very good, but how many PC gamers does it actually reach?” he said. “It can’t reach Fortnite players at all. Steam doesn’t have League of Legends or other Riot Games titles. It doesn’t have Genshin Impact. If they chose openness like Epic and Microsoft did, they could have won much more.”

Sweeney pointed to Microsoft’s 12 percent revenue cut as a benchmark for what a competitive platform looks like. Google Play has also improved its terms for developers, he noted, making the case that the “open camp” has real momentum.

“Microsoft only takes a 12 percent cut — that’s very competitive,” he said. “Google Play is now offering better rates to developers too. So I think the opportunity for an open ecosystem is real. Steam is already a successful business, but wouldn’t it be better if it were on iPhone, Android, and other platforms?”

Whether Valve will take that advice is another question. The company has been playing it safe lately, focusing on steady growth while making tentative bets on hardware. Its Steam Controller and Steam Machine efforts were attempts to reclaim the living room — efforts that never quite took off, but signal Valve isn’t ignoring the broader landscape entirely.

For now, the ball is in Valve’s court. Sweeney’s numbers may be hard to ignore, but Valve has spent two decades building its position from a place of independence. Joining anyone’s “team” would be a departure from form — and a bet on a future where your storefront is just one portal among many.