LOS ANGELES – Those eyeballs Fortnite has attracted with its 250 million players has help the Epic Store thrive.
In its first four months of operation since launching in December 2018, the digital storefront surpassed 85 million total signups. To put that number (which hasn’t been updated since the Game Developers Conference) in perspective, Sony’s PlayStation Network, which has been around for years, has 90 million monthly users. That’s similar to Valve Software’s decade-old Steam digital store, which has 90 million monthly users and 47 million active daily users.
Epic has been luring new users through regular free game giveaways every two weeks from indie studios. The company recently upped the ante with its first Epic Mega Sale, which runs through June 13 and features games for up to 75% off, as well as weekly free games.
Epic plans Fortnite extravaganzas – gaming, entertainment, swag – at E3
Several new games also are being launched via exclusives at the Epic store.
One interesting fact that Steve Allison, head of the Epic Games Store, pointed out during his GDC talk was that 40% of his customers don’t use Steam. So it seems like that massive Fortnite audience of players, influencers and fans are being steered to this new digital storefront.
It’s also become a draw for game developers thanks to its better royalties structure, which takes just 12% of sales revenue for regular games and waives an additional 5% royalty cost for games made with Unreal. In contrast, Steam, Apple’s App Store and Google Play take a 30% cut from developers. It’s this incentive that has caused a rush of game makers to the platform, although Epic is being selective of which titles it features for now. Tim Sweeney recently said that by the end of this year, the storefront will feature more games. But quality will remain the deciding factor in which titles make the cut.
Epic is using the E3 PC Gamer Show to advertise its Epic Store to PC gamers.
