Epic Games' Tim Sweeney has admitted that while its free game giveaways have been good for business, many of its exclusivity deals “were not good investments.”
At a recent press conference, Epic CEO Sweeney spoke candidly about the Epic Games Store's user acquisition methods, but acknowledged that while “some of[its EGS exclusives]did extremely well,” “a lot of them were not good investments.”
By contrast, Sweeney said his free-to-play games program has been “just magical” and “very cost-effective,” though the idea of giving away his games may seem “counterintuitive” at first.
“Giving away free games seems like a counterintuitive strategy, but companies spend money to attract users to games,” Sweeney said, as reported by PC Gamer.
“For about a quarter of the price it costs to acquire users through Facebook ads or Google Search Ads, we can pay a game developer a lot of money for the right to distribute their game to our users, and we can attract new users to the Epic Games Store at a very affordable rate.
“You might think this would hurt sales prospects for games on the Epic Game Store, but developers who give away free games actually see an increase in sales of their paid games on the store, simply because their free game generates awareness,” Sweeney added.
“And it's so much the case that oftentimes developers, when they're about to release a new game, will come to us wanting to work closely on a scheduled release of a free-to-play game, just to build awareness among users for their upcoming game. That's been an incredible thing. And it's been by far the most profitable aspect of the Epic Games Store.”
The Epic Games Store launched on mobile devices last Friday (August 16).
Fortnite announced it will bring its gaming marketplace to Android worldwide and iOS in the European Union thanks to this year's Digital Markets Act that requires Apple to enable third-party stores in its mobile ecosystem.