Epic Games has announced that the Epic Games Store marketplace has reached over 500 million accounts. The company has been determined to grow in the sector as a competitor to Steam through exclusive releases and of course, free games and it seems to be paying off. Well, literally “paying” as Epic has spent over $400 million in free games and exclusive agreements since 2020.
Epic Games didn’t share any specific details on the 500 million accounts such as how many of them actually play games and how many only own it to grab the free games (like me). However, the big announcement here is that the service is growing and new users are jumping onto the platform every day.
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Epic Games’ 500 million user accounts are quite a substantial number but in comparison to Steam, it’s a drop in the ocean. Valve’s gaming platform reported 1 billion user accounts back in 2019. However, Steam only had an average of 120 million active users in 2020.
We don’t how many of these 500 million Epic Games Store accounts are “active users”. Epic doesn’t want to share the specifics at the moment. If Epic Games keeps doing what they are doing they could surpass the 1 billion mark in a few years time. The free games and giveaways are a big driver for the company.
In 2021, Epic Games gave away GTA V on the store which resulted in around 7 million users trying to grab the game. The server load was so intense that it crashed the database and Epic suffered an 8-hour outage before getting the store back online.
Epic says they will still give even more free games away in the year ahead. This includes the weekly game drops as well as themed drops throughout the year. The company is also working on a lot of “next-gen” developments using its Unreal Engine 5. Many of which will remain as Epic Game Store exclusives on the platform.
Do you have an Epic Games account for the freebies or do you actually spend money on games? Let us know down below.
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Source The Verge
