Epic Games Store: Trial reveals the price of free games

Epic Games Store: Trial reveals the price of free games

There are a large number of examples Surfaced Starting with the first game distributed by the store for free in December 2018, that is Supnautica. While the store has just been created, we can see that the exploration game has been downloaded by 4.6 million people, which has resulted in the creation of 804,052 new user accounts. Among the first free games to be released online on the Epic Games Store, Supnautica It turned out to be one of the most expensive games for Epic Games, which provided $ 1.4 million in compensation to Unknown Worlds’ studio. For comparison, his successor Super Dead Boy Epic Games only costs $ 50,000. The latter also produced fewer downloads (1.7 million) and far fewer new accounts (97,042).

To find a game with a strong impact such as impact Supnautica, Gotta go forward until September 2019, when Epic Games showed off the Batman Arkham collection (Batman: Arkham AsylumAnd the Batman CityAnd the Batman: Arkham Knight) In its rotation of free games. Enough to generate 6.4 million downloads and create 613,912 additional accounts, all for a $ 1.5 million compensation for WB Games. The list that stops for the first nine months of the Epic Games Store, unfortunately we won’t know how much Epic Games has to pay for amazing deals like GTA V game Whose reward caused store waiters to disconnect in May 2020, or Total War Saga: Troy Which was available free in store for 24 hours on the day it was released.

The results of these first nine months, however, are that Epic Games paid studios $ 12 million for 38 free games, allowing them to generate 104 million downloads and 5 million new accounts. This means $ 2.37 is spent on every new user that is attracted to the store, which seems to be an interesting strategy for Epic Games, although we know that a small fraction of these users incurred expenses later.

An influential voice in independent development, Rami Ismail Discover these stats, and urge developers to request more money from big companies. Some of the smallest amounts Epic Games spends for a free week are Axiom Verge (80,000 dollars), rhyme ($ 45,000) or The last day of June ($ 75,000). Column-basedUser acquisition cost“We see that the game costing Epic Games the most in terms of the number of new accounts created on the Epic Games Store is Celeste. Epic Games spent $ 750,000 to bring the platform game free for a week, and brought 2.7 million downloads to 62,523 new accounts.

Temporary Singularity: The Borderlands 3 Example

While Epic Games spends money every week to acquire new users with free games, it is also doing so to give itself temporary exclusives. This was the case, for example, from Borderlands 3 It was released in September 2019 on the Epic Games Store and didn’t arrive on Steam until March 2020 after an exclusive 6-month deal. we Learn That Epic Games spent at least $ 146 million for this advance ($ 115 million for the game, plus marketing costs). As a result of the process, Epic Games said it restored a minimum $ 80 million warranty within two weeks. Most importantly, 53% of the 1.56 million users who purchased the game were not yet in the store’s ecosystem.

As a reminder, we recently learned that Epic Games Store incurred losses of $ 181 million in 2019 and $ 273 million in 2020. For Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney, those losses are a result of a calculated strategy. To get the slightest chance of being against Juggernaut Steam, the store is still at an expensive stage to acquire users with loads of free and exclusive games. “Apple claims it’s a waste of money, but spending today to build a large and profitable future business is exactly the principle of investing! This is also true if you are building a factory, store, or toy.Tim Sweeney replied Twitter Whose strategy is covered by Fortnite’s massive revenue.

  • To read also | Epic Games estimates that the Epic Games Store will be profitable as of 2023
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