Epic Games may be mostly associated with their hit Battle Royale titleFortnite,but the company itself has done a plethora of impressive activities throughout the gaming industry. We’ve seen the company bring theEpic Games Store to lifejust at the end of 2018, promising ahigher revenue for developers. We’ve seen the companyactively pushcross-platform play. It’s evenacquired Quixeland then opened a huge library of Megascan images for developers.
However, the company has also suffered a lot of flack, especially surrounding Epic exclusives. Titles such asMetro: Exoduswere due to launch on Steam, but after Epic Games got its hands on the title, it made the gameexclusive to the Epic Games Storefor the first year of its PC release.
The art of having to download another launcher to play games through said launcher was one that caused a lot of annoyance with gamers. However,speaking to GameDaily, Epic Games has announced that the year-old Store has garnered 108 million PC customers. Customers have also ended up generating $680 million in revenue.
Steve Allison, Epic Games Store GM told GameDaily “we are ahead of our early expectations,”
To add to that, the CEO of the company explained that “108M is the total number of Epic Games accounts which have specifically obtained the PC version of at least one product, whether free or paid” Those who may not know, the Epic Games Store gives away a free game to Epic Games Store accounts so long as they actually redeem it. Sweeney says that the free games have factored towards the growth of users.
In a graphical chart of the company’s numberswhich is available here, there have been 73 free games gifted to users, with over 200 million of those free games claimed.
Sweeney also explains, “This is out of 300M total Epic accounts across all platforms including console and mobile. Epic Games Store third-party game revenue in 2019 is roughly 60% higher than our initial forecast at launch, and the pace of free game installs is several times higher than we originally expected.”
GameDaily also reports that Epic Games has no plans to change its strategy with acquiring Exclusives. Sweeney detailed that, “Exclusives have been critical in gaining momentum in the presence of a competitor that began 2019 with more than 90% market share. Securing exclusives for Epic means we can significantly assist developers with product funding and invest in marketing and awareness knowing that these efforts bring in new customers to our store, rather than just sending more business to the incumbent.”
The Epic Games Store also has numerous exclusives heading to the store throughout 2020, with titles such asMagic: The Gathering, Auto Chess, Predator Hunting Grounds,andGodfallto name a few.
