Epic Games Lost $453 Million Running the Epic Games Store in 2019 & 2020

[Uskompuf]

Epic Games lost $181 million and $273 million on the Epic Games Store in 2019 and 2020 respectively according to a recent court filing and expect a loss of $139 million this year. The court filing reveals several interesting details about the Epic Games Store including that Epic doesn't anticipate that the store will turn a profit until 2023 and that the 12% distribution fee charged is sufficient to cover operating costs. Epic Games has spent $444 million on securing exclusive titles for the store in 2020 alone, in this same period players spent $700 million on the store of which $265 million was spent on third-party titles. Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney defended this referring to it as a long-term investment into growing the business. The Epic Games Store currently has 160 million registered users with 56 million monthly active users and it seems like Epic has no plans to slow down.



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[Lightofhonor]

Still a no from me, Epic.

 

[Rubble]

As much as I hate to give the game credit, I imagine fortnite has made them bucket loads more than this so I can't imagine they even feel this loss. While I'm not a fan of their app or some business practices, you can't really deny they've shaken the market up a bit with all the free games and whatnot.

 

[aktpu]

Epic is okay. Valve has been really lazy to improve things on their platform, except improvements on Linux side. Let's hope that Epic and (or) GOG can hit them in the jugular

 

[evernessince]

Epic is okay. Valve has been really lazy to improve things on their platform, except improvements on Linux side. Let's hope that Epic and (or) GOG can hit them in the jugular

I'm pretty sure steam puts in more work in a single month towards the platform then EPIC has for their store ever.

 

[Baum]

Epic is okay. Valve has been really lazy to improve things on their platform, except improvements on Linux side. Let's hope that Epic and (or) GOG can hit them in the jugular

if you run successfully any change can break it..

so rather leave it than change it is usually better with little changes.

Windows 8 is an prime example that always new interface just wont work :-/

 

[R0H1T]

I'm pretty sure steam puts in more work in a single month towards the platform then EPIC has for their store ever.

What (kind of) work

Or do you just mean profits $$

 

[arbiter]

I only bought like what maybe 5games maybe more but 100% not more then 10. My games library on epic is 141 games. As much as people hate it, you can get free games weekly so not bad thing to load up on thurs to snag free game(s) they give out.

 

[P4-630]

Thanks for all the freebies Epic!

 

[64K]

I'm curious to know how many of those free games have actually been played. I have seen some people say that they get the free games just because. Some even get the free games when they already own them on another service.

 

[john_]

If they want to have any long term success they have to create a store app where you can move your game folder from partition to partition and installation to installation with zero effort. Something that GOG Galaxy for example is doing. That "Download 1-2% of the game, stop it and then copy your old files to the new directory for the app to verify them (and still have to download GBs because in the meantime the game was updated)" approach is so great, that no matter how many free games Epic will offer me, I will ditch them in a minute if I find a better alternative. That business plan their CEO is defending, is based on the assumption that no one will challenge them in the next few years or that gamers will stick with them for ever.

 

[watzupken]

As much as I hate to give the game credit, I imagine fortnite has made them bucket loads more than this so I can't imagine they even feel this loss. While I'm not a fan of their app or some business practices, you can't really deny they've shaken the market up a bit with all the free games and whatnot.

I don't know man. Fortnite may have made a lot of money, but basically they are throwing money they get from IPO/ investors to fuel this free games spree. Even with the free games, I really wonder how many games are people buying on their store vs Steam. Given the losses, that just confirms this. I am sure there are a lot of people that just log in to get the free games, and then log out. While I did buy a couple of games there, I rarely log into EPIC launcher. In fact, I've removed it for quite some time.

 

[64K]

In the same 2 years Fortnite brought in revenue of almost 3 billion dollars from microtransactions. Then there are the exclusives sales because gamers don't want wait a year to play the games. Then there is also the money they got from Unreal licenses.

 

[evernessince]

I only bought like what maybe 5games maybe more but 100% not more then 10. My games library on epic is 141 games. As much as people hate it, you can get free games weekly so not bad thing to load up on thurs to snag free game(s) they give out.

From VR to the constant refinements to new features. For a company that sits on their butt, they certainly have not stopped adding new features regardless of EPIC's existence. The current iteration of steam is the best it's ever been.

 

[londiste]

The amount of money they are putting into platform largely through free games and their incentives for developers (lion's share of that is guaranteed revenue), which as they correctly say is an investment into growing the platform business, is actually quite sad to see. This is the scale of investment it takes today to bring out a competitive platform and this is seems pretty worrying. Who can we expect to compete with entrenched providers, not only Steam but also publishers' own platforms like EA's Origin/Desktop, Ubisoft's Connect, Blizzard/Activision's Battle.NET or GOG Galaxy? Besides the money they all also use or have used significant games to drive the adoption as well. And it seems to be getting worse rather than better. EGS became a thing in 2018 and Epic says they expect it to become profitable in 2023. 5 years of continuous heavy investment.

As for the EGS itself - it was very barebones at first with several annoying missing features. It still has a bunch of things to improve upon but it is a viable platform and it is comparable enough with others. Steam is the incumbent, oldest and most social-networky so maybe not the best comparison yet.

 

[gottimw]

I don't know man. Fortnite may have made a lot of money, but basically they are throwing money they get from IPO/ investors to fuel this free games spree. Even with the free games, I really wonder how many games are people buying on their store vs Steam. Given the losses, that just confirms this. I am sure there are a lot of people that just log in to get the free games, and then log out. While I did buy a couple of games there, I rarely log into EPIC launcher. In fact, I've removed it for quite some time.

They are buying an exposure and making it easy for users to jump to their store by default. It costs a lot of money to do it quickly. Look at gog or humble, both are not really considered a serious competition rather they are occupying a niche in the market.

If you were steam user and Epic made their games few $ cheaper, a lot of people would not bother. It takes an effort and Epic bridges that gap via exclusives and free games.

These are not losses. They are potential investments into capturing a market quickly and aggressively.

 

[64K]

EGS has 160 million registered users with 56 million monthly active users. They need to focus more on improving the service and adding features at this point if they want to overtake Steam. Otherwise all of those hundreds of millions in free games and exclusives will be wasted.

 

[Super XP]

Still a no from me, Epic.

Same, simply not interested in the Epic store.
Bethesda & Steam are more than enough.

 

[Ravenas]

Epic Games Store is on par with Origin in terms of feature set... Battle.net beats out Epic Game Store from a feature wise standpoint. Stating those two things means the investment isn't working.

There is literally no reason to use Epic Games Store at this point. The user base is based Fortnite and a bunch of free game give-a-ways that attract users to a platform that should be considered in beta. The whole direction of Epic Games is bad right now when you consider the lack of sucess with Epic Games Store and the antitrust lawsuits brought against Apple worldwide have already failed internationally and look certain to fail in the USA. Fortnite popularity is declining massively because in my opinion it was nothing more than a temporary success that other publishers / developers easily picked up and copied as a "segment" of their already immensely popular games.

 

[Renald]

What (kind of) work

Or do you just mean profits $$

Like anti-cheat measures. Kind of mandatory for a platform this size.
Look at refund system, library update, community, news feeds.

Sure the store looks the same, but behind the scene it's moving a lot and allows small developers to enter the market.

 

[medi01]

Still a no from me, Epic.

Yeah, something something, Steam butthurt, something.

I'm pretty sure steam puts in more work in a single month towards the platform then EPIC has for their store ever.

The "work" people imagine behind IT side of things in case of puny software stores is rather amusing.

 

[neatfeatguy]

From VR to the constant refinements to new features. For a company that sits on their butt, they certainly have not stopped adding new features regardless of EPIC's existence. The current iteration of steam is the best it's ever been.

Sorry, but turning what was once a simple interface for a library that launched games without an issue for years to a wannabe social media site and shove constant feeds/updates/news down your throat when all you want to do is launch a game......that's not adding good features. It may be adding features, but the new features are an eye sore.

I don't enjoy the "new UI" from Steam. I will never understand the idea of having so much shit on the screen to trigger a sensation overload is the idea of a good design.

I haven't purchased anything off Steam for almost 2 years now. Any games I have through Steam that I still play and have downloaded I don't even bother to open Steam itself anymore. I just link those games through GoG Galaxy and I let GoG Galaxy open Steam in the background so I don't have to be blinded by all the bling that Valve has been putting on Steam lately.

As for EGS, my younger brother is always telling me of free games they offer that I should get....but I have so many games already that I still haven't gotten around to playing that even free games on EGS don't entice me to sign up with them.

 

[Sithaer]

I have zero issues with EPIC, I have a registered account since I tried their Alpha Unreal Tournament based on UE 4.

Never installed Fortnite nor came there for the freebies only, started buying games since Borderlands 3 and so far its working just fine.
That being said I do like some of the freebies and already played a few so thats a good extra.

I also have a very old Steam acc, well since Half life 2 was a thing but tbh I never cared about those so called extra features. 'social features and whatever else'
Most of the time I simply buy my games where its cheaper or available, simple as that and EPIC has some good sales with the 10$ coupons on top.

 

[zlobby]

Serves them right.

 

[noel_fs]

yeah they are doing a good job aside of having the shittiest launcher of the scene