Epic Games Store will keep growing its portfolio of exclusive games in 2020, CEO and founder Tim Sweeney has revealed.
Epic Games Store will keep growing its portfolio of exclusive games in 2020, CEO and founder Tim Sweeney has revealed.
In an interview with GameDaily, Sweeney has made it clear that its aggressive policy about exclusive games won’t stop anytime soon. The strategy attracted much controversy in 2019 as it doesn’t allow significant titles to be released on other platforms such as fan-favorite Steam,
“Securing exclusives for Epic means we can significantly assist developers with product funding and invest in marketing and awareness knowing that these efforts bring in new customers to our store, rather than just sending more business to the incumbent,” he said.
The plans for 2020 exclusive games have yet to be fully outlined. Still, we do know that those will include the likes of Magic: The Gathering Arena, Predator: Hunting Ground, Auto Chess, Rogue Company, and Godfall, even though – similarly to Borderlands 3 – those will be available on Epic Games Store only for a limited time.
The limited-time exclusivity is usually six months or one year and, while this kind of operations has sparked a backlash among fans, it has been appreciated by developers. Wolfenstein‘s MachineGames commented last year that “competition is good for the industry. It’s good for everybody because competition just makes us be better,” and that to him, it’s a matter of remembering one more password, not that big deal.
The strategy has worked rather well for Epic Games. In its first year of business, the store has managed to earn $680 million from spending across 108 million PC consumers, with $251 million alone spent by players on third-party games from companies including Ubisoft, Rockstar Games, and Electronic Arts.
Free games had also been provided weekly in 2019, and it was just announced that the initiative is returning in 2020 with even more titles to be claimed and downloaded at no charge for users.
Published: Jan 15, 2020 11:11 am