What began as a quixotic try at competing with Valve’s Steam in 2018 has now turn out to be rather less quixotic as Epic posts its “Year in Review” for 2024, boasting numbers that present marked enchancment from earlier years. {The marketplace} continues to be nowhere close to Steam’s numbers, however is not left behind within the chilly regardless of the comparatively diminutive marketshare.
By way of excellent news, Epic says that the shop has reached 295 million customers on PC and practically 900 million cross-platform accounts when together with issues like different gadgets that play Fortnite (cellular, console, and so forth). This represents progress of about 100 million from the earlier 12 months, boasting a 67 million month-to-month common consumer price. Epic says this can be a 6% increase over 2023, however they declined to supply a MAU for the whole lot of 2023, as a substitute simply specializing in December.
In much less excellent news evaluating the years, Epic’s income for third-party recreation gross sales on PC has gone down from $310 million go $255 million, an enormous 18% drop year-over-year. Contemplating that is the bread and butter of on-line shops and largely the place they make their cash, the maths solely actually works out to assuming that the rise in customers primarily being for Epic’s personal video games. Whole income going up from $950 million to $1.09 billion whereas third-party income goes down type of bares that out.
By way of participant spend and engagement, the highest three titles are all Free-to-Play: Hoyoverse’s Genshin Influence claims the highest spot, adopted by Epic’s personal Rocket League, after which Hoyoverse once more with Honkai Star Rail. The primary paid recreation on the listing is Grand Theft Auto V, probably the most worthwhile piece of media of all time.
Within the close to future, Epic plans to enhance their cellular apps, which is the results of a currently-ongoing conflict the writer has been waging towards Google and Apple. The PC shopper may also lastly be including options similar to voice chat, textual content chat, out-of-game invitations, and pre-loading.
Whereas the numbers might be interpreted both approach relying on the place you resolve to focus, the falling third-party income is totally a trigger for concern. It’s seemingly that particular person video games on Steam or first-party shops on consoles made extra in 2024 than all of Epic’s third-party income in totality. Until this pattern reverses, it’s troublesome to see Epic persevering with to promote third-party video games in any respect when the huge, overwhelming majority of their income comes from their very own titles like Fortnite, Rocket League, and Fall Guys.
