We now know a bit more about how much Fortnite maker Epic Games has put behind its storefront.

As reported by PC Gamer, some interesting stats have emerged as part of the ongoing legal row between Epic Games and Apple. The latter has claimed – citing depositions by Epic Games Store VP and GM Steve Allison and the company's VP of business development Joe Kreiner – that the firm has "lost" huge sums of money in setting up its storefront.

Apple claims that Epic saw a $181 million loss on the Epic Games Store in 2019, a further $273 million last year and reckons it will end up losing $139 million by the end of 2021. That's a total of $593 million.

Part of this is due to the huge minimum guarantees Epic is giving out to companies who release their titles exclusively on the Epic Games Store. Apple reports that Epic "committed $444 million in minimum guarantees for 2020 alone," citing Allison, and apparently only projected $401 million in revenue for the year. Back in 2019, 505 parent company Digital Bros reported that Epic had paid $10.5 million for the exclusivity of Remedy's Control.

In its own filing, Epic has said that the Epic Games Store won't be profitable until 2023; Apple says that "at best" Epic won't reach this milestone before 2027.

"EGS is not yet profitable at its current scale and stage of development because it has front-loaded its marketing and user-acquisition costs to gain market share," Epic's lawyers wrote, citing company boss Tim Sweeney.

As of the end of 2020, the Epic Games Store had reportedly attracted 160 million users, a 48 per cent increase year-on-year.

Apple and Epic are currently locked in a legal battle owing to what the latter believes is anti-trust on the part of the iPhone firm. The Fortnite maker wasn't happy about being unable to sell directly to consumers on iOS, decided to make this possible and was kicked off the platform altogether.