Epic Games Store has over 108m customers but it looks as if it’s costing Epic serious money
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Epic has revealed the Epic Games Store has amassed more than 108 million PC customers since its launch in late 2018. The controversial digital storefront has seen $680m in revenue, including $251 million spent by players on third-party PC games on the Epic Games Store.
Breaking down the numbers somewhat, it doesn’t make for massively impressive reading in terms of profits. Epic Games being a privately owned company it’s doubtful we’ll ever get the full picture, of course, but $251 million in revenue from third-party games is sizeable yet nowhere near game changing at this stage. That’s the equivalent of 4.2 million $60 games sold. With exclusive games like World War Z, Borderlands 3, Metro: Exodus and Control on the service, you’d expect this figure to be higher.
Then there’s Epic’s revenue split to take into account. The EGS runs on an 88/12 split between the developer and the storefront. That means on store revenue of $251 million, Epic earned around $30.1 million. Factor in all of the deals Epic will have made for exclusives, including the likelihood of an improved share of earnings, and these profits would rapidly be stripped away. We know, for example, that Epic paid $10.4 million for Control’s year-long Epic Games Store exclusivity alone.
Throw in the costs associated with the 73 free games given away (totalling over 200 million free games claimed), the $23,000,000 in coupons fully funded by Epic, and the costs associated with running the store and, well, the EGS still looks like an absolute money pit, at least until it’s fully established.
That’s not to say that Epic isn’t feeling flush right now though. A grand total of $680 million was spent by PC players in the Epic Games Stores. Deduct the $251m and we’re looking at around $429 million spent by PC Fortnite players, of which 100% goes into Epic’s pockets. That means Fortnite earned 71% more revenue than every other Epic Store title combined, and that profits on earnings from Fortnite on PC were 1325% higher (estimated) than the 12% split from $251 million third-party revenue. Cash cow.
A whole ton of money is being thrown into the Epic Games Store, which is largely a win for the end user aside from the divisive stance on timed exclusives. To that end, Epic has announced it will be continuing its free weekly game program through the whole of 2020. It means at least 52 extra free games will be added, bringing the total up to over 120 free games over two years. Well that’s one to save a bucketload of money.
