Epic gave away ‘practically 700 million’ free video games final 12 months, will hold it going this 12 months

Nestled among the many stats within the Epic Video games Retailer 2022 Yr in Evaluate weblog publish that went up right now is a few anticipated however nice information: Epic is not finished gifting away free video games.

“Our weekly Free Video games Program will proceed in 2023,” the corporate wrote.

It has been 2023 for a pair months now, and Epic did not cease gifting away free video games every week—Kerbal Area Program was a spotlight in early January—so we form of already knew this, however it’s good to get affirmation that the gravy practice will chug alongside by no less than the tip of this 12 months.

The weblog publish additionally consists of some stats about final 12 months’s giveaways. For those who’d claimed all 99 video games that got away final 12 months, you’d have $2,240 price of video games, in response to Epic. All in all, “practically 700 million” free video games had been claimed in 2022. 

Epic additionally famous that 70 of the taking part video games broke their concurrent participant information, which isn’t too shocking: Give individuals free video games and they’re going to play the free video games.

Epic began gifting away video games in 2019 as a solution to carry new customers into the Epic Video games Retailer, and together with exclusives and the continued draw of Fortnite, the technique appears to be working.

“There are actually over 230 million Epic Video games Retailer PC customers, a rise of 36 million from 2021,” says Epic. “This makes a complete of 723 million Epic cross-platform accounts. In 2022 Day by day Energetic Customers peaked at 34.3 million and Month-to-month Energetic Customers reached 68 million customers, up from final 12 months’s 62 million.”

Steam stays fairly a bit bigger, although: Where the Epic Video games Retailer peaked at 34.4 million customers lively throughout a single day in 2022, Steam typically has over 30 million customers lively on the identical second in time. Its concurrent customers file, in response to SteamDB, is at the moment 33,159,010.

Epic says its Epic Video games Retailer improvement precedence this 12 months is to enhance efficiency, however it’s additionally engaged on new options, together with assist for subscription companies like EA Play. The most important announcement of the day from Epic, nonetheless, is that it has launched its self-publishing instruments, permitting anybody with $100 to submit a game to the Epic Video games Retailer.