Since yesterday, cAs every Thursday and for a little over a year and a half, the Epic Games Store has given away a couple of games to all its partners. They can be incorporated into the library to play with them whenever we want, and although this time, we are not facing a bombshell comparable to ‘GTA V‘ The ‘Total War: Troy‘, the proposal is not bad at all. ‘Enter the Gungeon‘, a roguelike of action indie critically acclaimed, and in case you haven’t had enough action, ‘God’s Trigger‘, starring a couple of hit men eager to paint the floor red in a zenith perspective, a la’ Hotline Miami ‘.
Front row or not, the truth is that Epic is almost continuously giving away very recent novelties or games, sometimes unreleased, a practice that distances him from his very abundant competition. Both Steam and GoG, its two main rivals, make highly publicized and profitable seasonal sales of hundreds of games in its catalog. But give away games of the category and quality that Epic gives away, only the creators of ‘Fortnite‘they can afford it. The question is why? If they enter zero euros for each of these games, what exactly do they get in return?
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The answer is so clear that it may be obvious: advertising for the store itself. Simply, the Epic Games Store uses free games as bait for people to open an account (essential to claim the titles and enjoy them later) and, in many cases, a number of people wander through the store looking for juicy offers who would not do it without that hook.
But there is more: in one recent interview with Gamespot“after launching their free games in the store they discover that their sales on Steam and consoles are increasing”. The reason is clear: the free game increases the number of players, who promote it on social networks, videos, streamingetc, and many other players want to try it even if it is no longer free.
Earn money sideways to take down Steam
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Epic knows that the business of a game sales platform is not exclusively in the money that is obtained from the pure and simple economic transaction. The increase in users and the percentage of active users are data that are worth money, and that benefits them when seeking financing and investors for your platform. Data (especially if it’s spectacularly good) is money too, and in that sense, Epic must be indisputably more valuable now than when it did its first investment round in 2018, where the company was valued at $ 15 billion. Let’s not forget that Chinese giant Tencent owns 40% of Epic since 2012When you invested $ 330 million in it – the data that keeps those values up is essential.
And in that search for juicy figures, giving games is not the only strategy: Epic has also invested a lot of money (and flame wars on the internet) to get exclusive, often temporary. One of the most talked about was the one of ‘Control’ for PC, exclusivity that later would be known that it cost him about ten million euros who paid the publisher of the game, 505 Games. It is not the only investment in this type of dealings with companies: Epic lets studios that sell their games through the Store use its Unreal engine. And of course, the biggest investment of all: Epic charges games that are on the store 12% of their profits, less than half of Steam’s 30%.
‘Control’, one of the most controversial exclusives on the Epic Games Store. —
Because Steam is Epic’s ultimate goal. For example, the platform that Valve owns has been forced to rethink its fees: it starts by charging 30% of the profits, yes, but as sales go up it goes to 25% and 20%. Epic confesses in the FAQ of your store that anything goes in this war: “in exchange for this exclusivity, Epic provides financial support for development and marketing purposes, allowing them to create better finished games“Epic openly states that it co-finances games in exchange for exclusivity.
So far, he’s not doing badly. But Steam continues to reign because, quite simply, many players have their library of games there, and that is where they should go to play. According to figures from SteamDB, the number of concurrent users to Valve’s platform broke its own record during the lockdown in April, on the 30th, with 24.5 million users. It is estimated that the platform owns 75% of the market.
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Steam recently dealt another blow to Epic when Electronic Arts announced that it was giving up trying to create its own platform – Origin – and went back to steam with games like ‘FIFA or’ Titanfall 2 ‘. Steam is certainly a tough rival, but Epic already announced in January 2020 Dizzying numbers after his first year: generated 680 million dollars in sales, 108 million users and 200 million downloads of the 73 free games until then. And in June, Epic announced 61 million users after giving away ‘GTA V’. The numbers are getting shorter, the distances too: meanwhile, free games for everyone.
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