The creators of Fortnite just delivered a huge gift to fans with an announcement that Epic Games will continue free weekly games throughout 2020. This is the continuation of a popular feature introduced in 2019 that fed players a steady diet of free games to play.
The announcement of the extended weekly free game giveaway came with a rundown of how successful the store has been. Since the Epic Games Store’s inception in 2018, more than 108 million players have joined up and it has pulled in more than $608 million in profit. Players have spent over $251 million on third-party games. The company also announced its support for developing cross-platform play across PC, Mac, PlayStation, Xbox, Switch, iOS, and Android.
The announcement that Epic will continue free weekly games throughout 2020, shared originally with GamesIndustry.biz, continues an unofficial trend of extending the weekly giveaway past its official end date in 2019. All players have to do is stop by the Epic store to download their free game weekly. “Once claimed, it’s yours to keep forever,” Epic’s announcement states. The company kicked off 2020 with three free games: the first two in the Darksiders trilogy and Steep followed swiftly by Sundered.
Epic initially promised a free game every two weeks in 2019 but over-delivered with not quite a game a week, but closer to that than a biweekly game. The store offered a total of 73 free games in 2019. They earned surprisingly high ratings from players, who downloaded them more than 200 million times. These included Totally Accurate Battle Simulator, For Honor, Rayman Legends, the Batman: Arkham collection, Slime Rancher, Layers of Fear, and more. The announcement does not include a full schedule of free game releases, but fans can likely expect them to be of similar quality as the 2019 free games.
The numbers suggest that the bulk of Epic Games’ customers are there to play (and spend money on) Fortnite. This makes up the majority of the profit the company has seen since launching the online store. However, the data also suggests a healthy subset of players who enjoy playing third-party games - and even more who can’t resist the allure of free ones. Ultimately, this is good for everyone. For Epic, it’s a way to bring eyes to the store and build customer loyalty. But with games being as expensive as they are, this gives players with less disposable income a way to greatly expand their collections without breaking the bank in doing so.
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Source: GamesIndustry.biz
