Epic has released statistics for the Epic Games Store – and it is showing impressive growth.
Monthly active users increased from 32 million in 2019 to 56 million in December 2020, Epic announced in a blog post.
It’s a big leap, but the Epic Games Store still has a way to go before it catches up with market leader Steam. Earlier this month, Valve announced that Steam has more than 120 million active users monthly.
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There are now more than 160 million PC users of Epic Games Store, Epic said. Daily active users increased by 192 percent to 31.3 million, with a peak of 13 million concurrent players in 2020 (compared to seven million in 2019).
Steam, on the other hand, hit 62.6 million daily active users, while the largest number of users simultaneously reached 24.8 million last year.
The growth in Epic’s growth has led to an increase in purchases and playing time, as you would expect. The company said PC customers in the Epic Games Store spent more than $ 700 million in 2020, of which third-party games accounted for 37 percent at $ 265 million.
Epic offers publishers and developers higher savings than Valve. Epic distributes 88 percent of the share to the developer / publisher, with Epic’s 12 percent covering operating costs and profits.
Steam takes a 30 percent saving by default, though developers can keep 75 percent of the revenue if their game generates $ 10 million, and 80 percent if the revenue is more than $ 10 million.
Last year, the Epic Games Store community played 70 percent more hours with a total playing time of 5.70 billion hours in 2020 compared to 3.35 billion hours in 2019.
Again, by comparison, Steam experienced 31.3 billion hours of playing time in 2020, and the number of games purchased increased by 21.4 percent compared to 2019.
The tremendous growth of the Epic Games Store is fueled in part by the eye-catching free games it regularly offers. Epic gave away 103 games in 2020 (worth $ 2407), with more than 749 million games claimed by users during the year.
The most popular games in the Epic Games Store in 2020, as expected, included the company’s own Fortnite, as well as a few games that were first launched on a platform computer, such as Assassin’s Creed Valhalla and Borderlands 3.
Looking to the future, Epic said it would expand the number of games in the Epic Games Store by offering developers self-publishing tools for the platform.
Epic added that it will improve existing features like Wishlists and Achievements in 2021. Player profiles and a social overhaul are also underway.