The Epic Games Store has had a rough few weeks. Steve Allison, who spent eight years leading the storefront and was still publicly defending its free games program as recently as February, left the company in July to join Saber Interactive. That's a significant exit for a platform that has never quite found its footing against Valve's Steam.
Epic's answer? Go headhunting at Blizzard.
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The man Epic is betting on
Martin Keely is now the VP and GM of the Epic Games Store. He spent seven years at Blizzard Entertainment, most recently as SVP overseeing the Battle.net launcher, the platform that manages Blizzard's entire game library including World of Warcraft, Overwatch 2, Diablo IV, and Hearthstone. If you want a sense of the scale he's worked at, Battle.net has served hundreds of millions of registered accounts globally.
Keely announced the move on LinkedIn, saying he's "excited to get started with the team delivering new capabilities that elevate player, creator and developer experiences." He also framed the opportunity in broader terms, describing it as a chance to "play a role in shaping an open and sustainable gaming ecosystem."
That phrasing is deliberate. Epic has positioned the Epic Games Store as a more developer-friendly alternative to Steam, pointing to its 88/12 revenue split compared to Steam's standard 70/30. The key here is whether Keely can turn that pitch into a platform that players actually prefer to use, not just one developers tolerate.
What Steam's dominance actually looks like
The scale of the gap between Steam and the Epic Games Store is hard to overstate. Steam regularly peaks above 30 million concurrent users. The Epic Games Store has never come close to those numbers, and its most consistent traffic driver remains Fortnite, which is Epic's own game. If you strip out Fortnite players, the store's organic usage drops considerably.
Epic has tried several approaches to close that gap. The free games program, which Allison championed, brought in new users but data showed only 16 to 18 percent of those users went on to buy anything. That's a high cost-per-acquisition for limited conversion. Epic CEO Tim Sweeney has taken shots at Steam's policies publicly, including calling its AI disclosure requirements "really irresponsible," but public criticism hasn't translated into user migration.
Here's the thing: the Epic Games Store's problems aren't really about pricing or exclusives at this point. The platform lacks the social features, review systems, workshop support, and community tools that make Steam feel like a destination rather than just a store. That's exactly the kind of platform infrastructure Keely spent years building at Battle.net.
What Keely's background actually signals
Battle.net isn't a perfect comparison to the Epic Games Store, but the overlap is meaningful. Both are PC launchers trying to aggregate a game library and keep players engaged between sessions. Battle.net succeeded at building a cohesive ecosystem around Blizzard's titles, complete with friend lists, cross-game social features, and a launcher that players don't actively resent opening.
What most players miss is that the Epic Games Store's biggest problem isn't the games on it. It's the experience around those games. Keely's background suggests Epic is aware of that and is hiring someone who has actually solved similar problems before, rather than someone with a pure sales or marketing background.
For context, Blizzard games like Hearthstone have maintained competitive player bases for years partly because of how well Battle.net handles cross-game identity and social connectivity. If you're curious how that game's current meta holds up, our top Hearthstone meta decks guide breaks down the strongest Standard builds right now.
The road ahead for Epic's storefront
Keely stepping in doesn't automatically fix the Epic Games Store. Platform trust takes years to build and the store has been operating since 2018 without cracking Steam's hold on PC gaming. Sweeney has acknowledged Steam's strengths while arguing Epic is "missing out on opportunity" by not having Fortnite and other major live service games on its platform, but that argument cuts both ways.
The hiring signals that Epic is serious about investing in the store's infrastructure rather than just its game catalog. Whether that means better social features, improved discovery tools, or a more developer-friendly publishing pipeline isn't clear yet. Keely's LinkedIn post was optimistic but light on specifics.
PC gamers who have bounced off the Epic Games Store before have good reason to watch this space. If Keely applies even a fraction of what made Battle.net functional to Epic's platform, the experience of using the store day-to-day could improve meaningfully. Browse our gaming guides for more coverage as the Epic Games Store situation develops.
