The Epic Games Store has seen a strong increase in user numbers over the past six years, reaching an impressive total of 295 million users. However, third-party revenue has not grown at the same pace.
  • Soapbox@lemmy.zipEnglish
    211·
    2 days ago

    I only have an account to accumulate the games they give away for free every week that I never actually play because they aren’t on steam.

    • Kuma@lemmy.worldEnglish
      2·
      1 day ago

      Same, I think I will use their games as demos on epic to see if it is worth buying on steam if I am unsure but I have yet to do this haha

  • Sunsofold@lemmings.worldEnglish
    9·
    2 days ago

    I really want to see what percentage of ‘users’ licenses are actually paid, and/or what average percentage of ‘users’ titles are just free. I have precisely one game I have paid for on Epic (Satisfactory, because I was excited for first person factorio) but I have over 100 titles in my library. I have to wonder how many of those free games I would have to download before the server costs completely eat the profit from that one copy of Satisfactory.

    • piguyisme@programming.devEnglish
      2·
      1 day ago

      Lol I’m exactly the same I saw early footage of satisfactory and bought it and now I regret it because I have it on epic instead of steam. All of my other games on epic are the free giveaways. Pro tip you can use heroic launcher instead of epic to play your free games so you don’t have to start their god awful launcher!

    • Jo Miran@lemmy.mlEnglish
      692·
      3 days ago

      By redeeming Epic giveaways and never buying anything you are sending profits to the developer while simultaneously costing Epic money. Win/Win.

      • CileTheSane@lemmy.caEnglish
        5·
        2 days ago

        The developers get paid a flat rate for allowing their game to be free, not per download. You are not sending the developer any money and allowing epic to inflate their user numbers (up 167% !!!) to investors.

        • pogodem0n@lemmy.worldEnglish
          1·
          1 day ago

          Not that I am doubting you, but I’d really like to see a source for this. I would like to learn more about it.

      • anamethatisnt@sopuli.xyzEnglish
        10·
        3 days ago

        I got Outer Worlds with all dlcs included, that’s the only game I’ve installed and played from my EGS collection. I think I got Control there too, which I’ve been curious about.

      • ZoteTheMighty@lemmy.zipEnglish
        4·
        2 days ago

        Harry Potter was free a few weeks ago. Both Styx games are free in a few days, which are excellent stealth games. Epic games routinely gives out good games for free.

  • Sanctus@anarchist.nexusEnglish
    563·
    3 days ago

    I dont even login to get the free games anymore. Fuck 'em they aren’t interested in making a good experience.

    • VitoRobles@lemmy.todayEnglish
      5·
      2 days ago

      He didn’t say he was a pedo and a Nazi. He said it’s cool that they exist and any issues with that means you’re a lefty censor person. But it DOES imply that he’s a pedo and a Nazi.

  • BlueTardis@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
    22·
    2 days ago

    GoG is generally the better alternative to steam than epic.

    Steam isn’t perfect but it works and has a decent consumer oriented service. GoG is doing great with conservation and drm free options but their launcher isn’t amazing. Pair either with Heroic games launcher or similar for a great experience on almost any OS

  • RightHandOfIkaros@lemmy.worldEnglish
    15·
    2 days ago

    I am curious how much of their growth is attributed to cheaters creating infinite accounts to claim free games so if they get banned on one account they just switch to another one.

    Dead By Daylight has this problem where the game was free for like a week on Epic games, and if you play with a cheater in the game (pretty common because the anticheat is nonexistent), its almost always from an Epic account with some random character username.

  • buffaloseven@piefed.caEnglish
    39·
    3 days ago

    I always felt there was promise to a new store with a big backing to challenge Steam. I think Steam is great and it’s my primary PC games store, but I see the concern of only having one real player in the market. But EGS simply hasn’t done it. It feels like they recognized the reasons Steam is such a huge player in the space; it’s not just the library and the sales, but the level of consumer-focused support and features the platform offers. And that’s the key, Steam is a platform, not just a store.

    EGS has never become a platform. It’s missing features, it’s social features are anemic, it’s like they put some effort in to get it off the ground and not broken, and then have just hoped giving away free games will somehow magically convince people to spend money there.

    I think there’s reasons to be concerned about Steam, but you cannot ignore how broadly consumer friendly the platform is. Their hardware initiatives only highlight what a complete package their ecosystem is and they’re loaded with some of the most consumer-friendly choices in the industry.

    EGS is stuck in no-man’s land. Steam is a better platform, GoG is more consumer-friendly. Humble has Choice which can be a good deal. Fanatical does a better job with sales and credit from purchase. EGS just kind of sits in a no-mans land with no compelling features other than you don’t need to spend money to get games, which is great for us but a terrible business strategy for Epic.

    • doublah@sopuli.xyzEnglish
      26·
      3 days ago

      The problem is these stores (Epic but also the Microsoft Store and Amazon’s PC game store) only come along because some executive says “hey what if instead of Valve taking a cut from most PC games, we took a cut from most PC games”, there’s 0 interest or intent for them to be competition (as seen by the exclusives) for Steam or improve the developer/user experience.

      Any time these massive companies offer a cheaper subsidised alternative to any existing product it’s to push out the smaller players with less resources and build their own monopoly.

      • buffaloseven@piefed.caEnglish
        10·
        3 days ago

        Absolutely. It’s also an immense amount of work to get a platform up to a competitive standard with Steam; I’m not sure a small company will ever be able to catch up in any short term time frame.

        But stores like Fanatical, GreenManGaming, GameBillet, etc. have the better idea of just being stores that focus on getting customers better deals. They don’t even attempt to edge onto Steam’s turf because a storefront can’t compete with Steam, nor can a half-baked launcher.

        Reality is that Valve has functionally a 20 year head start on any company that wants to try and edge in on their turf. So it can’t be done just to get a cut of sales because you’re not going to have the follow-through to build the user base if that’s your reason.

    • Cyberspark@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
      4·
      3 days ago

      By going the route exclusives they deliberately avoided being competition and cemented themselves as the early access platform with no features.

      Hades was as good as it was because it had a year to be mediocre on EGS first

    • EarMaster@lemmy.worldEnglish
      2·
      2 days ago

      One of the reasons EGS fails is Fortnite in my opinion. In Fortnite they have done all these things: they created a platform with social abilities and all that. Fortnite still brings them lots and lots of money, but this shouldn’t be in Fortnite it should be in their launcher. It could be even more integrated than Steam does. Why not let games grant you skins you can use in other games as a character model (given the game supports it)?

  • sneakyninjapants@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
    28·
    3 days ago

    Waiting for them to cut their losses within the next couple years. Sunset the money-losing platform and revoke all the free game licences

  • unexposedhazard@discuss.tchncs.deEnglish
    231·
    3 days ago

    Their entire plan is giving away AAA games for free to lure people in and then make all that money back later by raising prices or subscription models. Its been quite obvious but people just use their shitty store anyways.

    • TheFogan@programming.devEnglish
      5·
      3 days ago

      Honestly it doesn’t sound like it. To get that many new users and that little revenue pretty much implies that most of their “new users” are people who come in to get the free game, and won’t put a dime into using it.

      If I ran a bookstore and did a promo where I gave a book away to everyone once a month. I went from 1000 customers a month, to 2,700 customers a month. but only sold 10 more books each month. That would pretty strongly demonstrate that people don’t want to buy my books, and almost all of the increased traffic is people just taking free books and leaving.

      • CileTheSane@lemmy.caEnglish
        3·
        2 days ago

        And when you went to investors you would just tell them you’ve increased your customers by 170% and leave out the part that they aren’t buying anything. You might try to make more money from investors than you’re losing in free books.

  • Arcane2077@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
    221·
    3 days ago

    I caved and bought Alan Wake 2 and Kingdom Hearts Melody of Memories because I lost hope of them ever coming to Steam. The few exclusives they have explains the minimal growth pretty succinctly. I hope nobody involved is surprised

    • T4V0@lemmy.worldEnglish
      261·
      3 days ago

      And that’s why I would never purchase any games there lol

    • warmaster@lemmy.worldEnglish
      151·
      3 days ago

      I wouldn’t give them a dime even if it meant playing my favorite series’ sequel. I don’t like the people behind it, I don’t like how they think, I don’t like what they envision for the industry, and I don’t want to contribute in any measure to any of that ever happening.

      • CileTheSane@lemmy.caEnglish
        3·
        2 days ago

        Borderlands 3 launching as an Epic exclusive saved me from making the mistake of purchasing it. By the time is was available elsewhere reviews were pretty universal on it not being worthwhile.

    • Coelacanth@feddit.nuEnglish
      6·
      3 days ago

      Alan Wake 2 is the only title I ever bought on Epic too. Do not regret it, despite my dislike of Epic and EGS. My desire to support Remedy was magnitudes larger than any desire to protest Tim Sweeny.

    • iturnedintoanewt@lemmy.worldEnglish
      4·
      3 days ago

      It’s the best game I’ve played in years, but I’d rather but physical or in any other manner than giving money to epic. Still waiting for any other chance.

  • Auster@thebrainbin.org
    12·
    3 days ago

    Who’d have thought making things free while making a big noise out of it, taking over what people liked and expected elsewhere, not offering tangible improvement and showing spite towards competition would cause them to not show healthy growth. Also makes me wonder who finances them.