As a new gaming platform in recent years, Epic has adopted a strategy of limited-time exclusive and free gifts to attract players to the platform. Usually Epic will make the PC version of a game monopolize the Epic platform for about a year through investment and buyout. However, data shows that this limited-time exclusive strategy may result in a loss of up to 130 million U.S. dollars.
Techraptor reported that Simon Carless, the founder of GameDiscoverCo, exposed a court document concerning a dispute between Epic and Apple earlier this year. The above details the costs and benefits of Epic’s first batch of 23 limited-time exclusive games. Although the names of the games have been blacked out, some players have relied on the release date recorded above to roll out the revenue of each game.
According to data, Epic spent a total of US$210 million for these 23 games to ensure their exclusive monopoly on the Epic platform for a limited time, but it is estimated that only about US$80 million of initial investment can be recovered, which means that Epic’s loss has reached US$130 million.
For example, everyone is very familiar with Metro Leaving Home, Epic invested 37 million US dollars in this work, but the loss is expected to reach 22 million US dollars. According to the data, only “Happy Factory” and “Fearless” among these games have achieved profitability. At present, Epic is still giving away free games to players every week, which is a considerable sum of money. Earlier court documents showed that the Epic platform is expected to be profitable in 2023.
