Epic Games has been giving away free games every week for years, which has apparently been going well, but store exclusives have underperformed.
Valve doesn’t have a complete monopoly when it comes to buying digital games, but most people know that Steam is the de facto place to buy PC games. Storefronts like GOG and Itch.io have their niches, but Steam is still where most PC games are, despite its flaws. Then, in 2018, Epic Games decided it wanted a piece of the pie and opened its own store, but it did so without controversy as many PC gamers didn’t like it at first. Six years later, the store still exists, but there are still a lot of people who don’t like it.
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Of course, Epic has tried some strategies to encourage players to use its platform, such as weekly free games, which have been given out every week since 2018, and some seasons even offer daily free games. But in a recent press conference (via PC Gamer ), although the cost may be high, Epic CEO Tim Sweeney said that this is a “very economical” user acquisition plan.
“Giving away free games as a strategy may seem counterintuitive, but companies spend money to entice users to play games,” Sweeney said. “The cost of acquiring users through Facebook ads or Google search ads is about a quarter, we can pay game developers a lot for the right to distribute games to our users, and we can attract new users very economically Head to the Epic Games Store for the price.
“You might think this would hurt the sales prospects of games on the Epic Game Store, but developers who give away free games actually see a surge in sales of paid games in the store simply because their free games increase awareness. Developers often It’s a great aspect to work closely with when new games are coming out, releasing free games on a regular basis just to raise awareness for their next game.
Of course, Epic has also tried to attract more players by hosting certain PC games exclusively on the store (usually only for a limited time), including the first Hades, Ooblets, and for a while, Kingdom Come. “Heart” series and other famous games. It didn’t go so well, though, with Sweeney saying: “We spent a lot of money on exclusives. Some of them worked really well. A lot of them weren’t good investments, but the free-to-play program was just amazing.” I thought. You can’t win them all!
