gamasutra "The Epic Games Store is hemorrhaging cash to deliver exclusives and free games"

[Avacado]

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Epic's bid to disrupt the digital distribution status quo with the Epic Games Store (EGS) is costing the company hundreds of million of dollars each year. 

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Court documents submitted by Apple ahead of its high-profile showdown with Epic indicate the Fortnite creator lost around $181 million on the EGS in 2019, and was projected to lose another $273 million on the storefront in 2020.

 

 

Source: https://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/379683/The_Epic_Games_Store_is_haemorrhaging_cash_to_deliver_exclusives_and_free_games.php

 

No surprise here. I was wondering how they were able to afford giving away so much free content. 

Edited April 13, 2021 by Avacado

[Huzzug]

Since the point of contention between Apple and Epic is the 30% cut that Apple gets on IAP, this was probably done to prove hosting apps/games on their storefront isn't cheap and justifies what Apple charges.

[schuck6566]

2 hours ago, Huzzug said:

Since the point of contention between Apple and Epic is the 30% cut that Apple gets on IAP, this was probably done to prove hosting apps/games on their storefront isn't cheap and justifies what Apple charges.

If that was apples game plan, they kinda screwed the pooch. I posted my epic library elsewhere in the forums here(150 games at the moment, 1 or 2 were cash purchases rest were free and I haven't even taken ALL the free games)How many PAID games does Apple offer their users? Not games that are already free, but games that would cost a user to purchase? As of 1/2021 Epic had over 160 million subscribers. THAT'S a hefty chunk of money for games if people are taking them."The Epic Games Store's huge growth is fuelled in part by the eye-catching free games it offers on a regular basis. Epic gave away 103 games in 2020 (for a value of $2407), with over 749m games claimed by users in the year."https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2021-01-28-the-epic-games-store-is-getting-a-lot-more-popular

[Andrew]

5 minutes ago, schuck6566 said:

If that was apples game plan, they kinda screwed the pooch. I posted my epic library elsewhere in the forums here(150 games at the moment, 1 or 2 were cash purchases rest were free and I haven't even taken ALL the free games)How many PAID games does Apple offer their users? Not games that are already free, but games that would cost a user to purchase? As of 1/2021 Epic had over 160 million subscribers. THAT'S a hefty chunk of money for games if people are taking them."The Epic Games Store's huge growth is fuelled in part by the eye-catching free games it offers on a regular basis. Epic gave away 103 games in 2020 (for a value of $2407), with over 749m games claimed by users in the year."https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2021-01-28-the-epic-games-store-is-getting-a-lot-more-popular

I wouldn't be surprised if out of those 160 million subscribers, almost all of them are just there for the free games/Fortnite. Their store is still no where near up to the standards of Steam. Even Uplay has a better storefront. If Epic really wants to compete properly against Steam, they should offer something that Steam doesn't. At the moment, EGS is just another digital storefront.

 

Aside from fixing the storefront, offer a subscription service for example. $5/month and you have unlimited access to all games they offer. If 10% of the users pay for that, that's then an extra $80M/month and will likely bring in more people to use EGS.