At first glance, it’s tempting to think that the growth of the Epic Games Store is already running into difficulties. One statistic: $820 million. This is the store’s sales for the year 2022, a decrease of 2% compared to the $840 million recorded in the year 2021. If we can attribute this drop to the end of the confinement effect, the result still seems a bit disappointing.
Third-party games are on the rise
However, this is not the feeling that emerges from the words of Tim Sweeney, who admittedly can rely on positive signals. First, if sales are disappointing, third-party game sales are not, which have gone from $300 million to $355 million. Bringing (and selling) third-party games to the Epic Games Store is clearly a big deal for the store in the face of the boogeyman Steam and the millions of PC players refusing to shake up their habits. This 18% increase is therefore a positive signal that compensates for the sharp drop in internal game sales.
The latter generated $465 million in 2022, compared to $540 million in 2021. While they still account for the bulk of revenue, the internal games affected are just a handful, namely Fortnite, Rocket League, and Fall Guys. At the house of The edgeTim Sweeney has confirmed that the engagement is going ahead Fortnite experienced a post-pandemic decline. ” Monthly active Fortnite users remained stable, but playtime, hours played, and spend dropped “, he explains.
Another important indicator for any trading platform is the number of active users. In 2022, the number of daily active users reached 34.3 million players, surpassing the peak of 31.1 million in 2021. Based on the month of December 2022, the active users stand at 68 million against 62 million in 2021. Obviously logging in once a year to collect a free game is enough to be considered an active user.
To continue to see third-party game revenue grow in 2023, Epic Games is announcing that studios of all sizes now have the option to self-publish their games, as is already the case on Steam and most other platforms. Studios using these self-publishing tools will continue to benefit from preferential revenue sharing from the store (88% for the studio, 12% for Epic Games). An obviously important step, which will not prevent Epic Games from investing again to obtain limited-time exclusives, just as the distribution of free games continues in 2023.
The PC Game Pass compatible with the Epic Games Store one day?
Another notable new line in the form of an opening sign, a multiplayer game published on the Epic Games Store must now have the cross play through all PC stores where it is available. For this, the studios have the choice between using (free) the tools of Epic Online Services, their own technology or a third-party solution. One of the future prospects mentioned by Steve Allison, General Manager of the Epic Games Store, is support for subscriptions from third-party publishers, meaning subscribers to EA Play, Ubisoft Plus and ” hopefully PC Game Pass could one day download their games from the Epic Games store.
Still an important argument for the visibility of the Epic Games Store is that there will be many free games again in 2022. In total, players could download up to 99 games for free, worth $2,240. ” The smaller free games are downloaded between 6.5 and 7 million times at any time of the year. The largest, between 20 and 25 million “, reveals Steve Allison. In addition to exposing their games to a large audience, being listed for free on the Epic Games Store would have other positive consequences, such as increasing sales of the games in question on both the Epic store and the Valve store. .
