Epic Games has confirmed that for the entirety of 2023, it will once again be giving away free PC games every week through the Epic Games Store.
But how does Epic choose which games to give away? The company tells us it’s all about timing – and picking some big names. Since launching the Epic Games Store in late 2018, Epic has spent millions of dollars giving away games as a way to attract new users and boost its nascent game store. Initially the company gave away one free game every two weeks before increasing the provision to 1 every week starting in June 2019.
Epic’s goal is to have a “core” game every month, says Steve Allison, Epic’s vice president and general manager Games Store, in an interview with The Verge. “These are going to be really long weeks,” he says. For the lesser-known game weeks, Epic tries to highlight hidden gems, teams the company respects, or a developer who may have an upcoming release in the works. Looking at Rock Paper Shotgun’s collection of all the free games that have appeared on the store, this generally lines up with what actually happened. So far, the free titles offered for 2023 have so far been a bit poor in terms of significance, with us yet to see anything on the level of a Grand Theft Auto V or Sid Meier’s Civilization VI. Predictably, the Epic Games executive declined to share details about specific games that Epic Games Store users should expect. Free games can be really beneficial for developers.
The smaller free-to-play games in any given week receive between 6.5 and 7 million requests for (immediate or future) download,” says Allison. The biggest; Twenty to 25 million requests, according to him. By the way, developers are not only getting new free gamers. Epic CEO and co-founder Tim Sweeney says developers are seeing sales growth on both the Epic Games Store and Steam, Valve’s rival PC game store. Sweeney also points out that free games can be a good deal for gamers in developing countries where games can be more expensive, meaning they help expand the global reach of certain titles.
And since developers receive a flat fee from Epic so that the company can offer their game for free, they make some profit no matter what. Of course, Epic’s actions aren’t entirely altruistic. The company spends a lot of money to be able to give away games for free, and they definitely want to offer good games that will keep users playing on their platform instead of others like Steam. And if Epic can attract gamers with free-to-play games from notable developers, gamers themselves might also try some of Epic’s big free-to-play multiplayer games like Fortnite or Rocket League, keeping them in its universe. Epic, again, away from Steam.
The company is sharing the news about the free games program as part of its annual year in review for its online store. Based on these figures, the platform appears to be growing, with Epic reporting that daily active users reached 34.3 million in 2022, up from 31.1 million in 2021, while monthly active users reached 68 million, from 62 million in 2021. However, the Epic Games Store didn’t bring in as much money as it did in 2021.
While Epic reports spending on third-party apps totaled $355 million, up 18% from the previous year when the company includes its own games, spending was down 2% from a year earlier, at $820 million. Sweeney attributes this drop mainly to Fortnite.
The funny thing that happened post-pandemic is that Fortnite’s monthly active users stayed up, but play time, play hours and spending went down,” says Sweeney. I’m interested to see if that changes this year, especially with a promising new season starting soon. Yesterday Epic shared additional details about the wide release of tools that will be available to any developer who wants to self-publish their game to the service. These tools are now available to anyone interested, after a long testing period. The company also plans to add support for subscription services from third-party publishers, meaning the Epic Games Store could offer programs like EA Play, Ubisoft Plus, and “hopefully PC Game Pass,”
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