Epic Games is celebrating the growth of its PC gaming store by sharing a number of informational tidbits about its performance. Most notably, the company revealed that players spent $680 million on the platform since launch. That’s a good sign for the competitor to Steam — but it’s worth noting that majority of that cash went directly to Epic. Of that $680 million, Epic Games Store customers spent $251 million on third-party games. That means $429 million went to Epic games, and that primarily means Fortnite.
But that ratio of 1.7-to-1 in terms of revenue for Fortnite versus non-Epic Games isn’t really a problem. Fortnite brings in a huge audience that is willing to spend money, and that could spill over into other games. Valve Software, the company that owns and operates Steam, probably sees something similar where its games like Dota 2 and Counter-Strike: Global Offensive represent an out-sized proportion of its customers’ spending.
As for Epic, this shows that PC gamers showed up to spend money on its platform despite vocal complaints from some diehard fans of Steam. Still, it’s tough to tell if $251 million is a strong number split between Borderlands 3, Metro Exodus, Division 2, Control, Outer Worlds, Untitled Goose Game, Dautless, Satisfactory, World War Z, and more.
Of course, that $251 million only represents what customers spent. It doesn’t fully reflect what developers earned. It also doesn’t even reflect the total value of games that Epic Games Store customers received. Epic Games paid many studios to keep their games off of Steam, and that’s guaranteed money that has nothing to do with sales. On top of that, Epic gave out a total of 73 free games throughout the year. And PC gaming fans claimed more than 200 million copies of those free games.
Epic Games Store in 2020
Looking ahead, Epic Games announced that it will keep making deals to keep developers off of Steam. It will also continue offering up free games.
“New decade means new games,” reads an Epic Games blog post. “And we’re looking at a great start with tons of amazing titles coming exclusively to the Epic Games Store in 2020. To kick things off, we’re extending our weekly free game program throughout 2020. Every single week, come back to claim your game. Once claimed, it’s yours to keep forever!
Finally, Epic Games is looking to continue supporting the developers that it works with. It’s going to keep its favorable revenue split that enables studios to keep 88% of each game sale. It’s also going to expand the payments systems that those teams can use in their games. And it’s working to make cross-platform multiplayer even easier by giving away its tools to other developers.
Author: Jeff Grubb
Source: Venturebeat
