TECH

Epic has given away over US$2,000 worth of free games since 2018 but fortunately has now made more than US$1 billion with Fortnite mobile

A report has estimated that the Epic Games Store has given out more than US$2,000 worth of free games to subscribers since December 2018. Over 100 titles have been offered gratis, with GTA V being the latest. Fortunately for Epic, the company can subsidize this loss with the US$1 billion made by the mobile version of Fortnite alone.
PCGamesN has worked out roughly how much Epic Games has given out in terms of free titles, culminating in the recent successful freebie offer for GTA V. The normal prices for regular versions of all 108 games that have been offered for free so far were added together and a total of US$2,140.94 was discovered. Multiply that by the millions of downloads that gamers have snapped up for free and that’s quite a loss Epic is taking to attract customers to its store.
Fortunately for Epic, it appears the company can afford to subsidize grand offers such as giving away GTA V and other future rumored freebies (Civilization VI etc.). Sensor Tower has published an interesting report about how well Fortnite has been performing just on mobile platforms, and it seems the popular battle royale title has now amassed over US$1 billion in revenue via the Google Play Store and the App Store. 


Back in January, Fortnite mobile raked in around US$21.8 million but the COVID-19 lockdown has contributed to that figure shooting up to US$44.3 million in April. Apparently, gamers in the USA are the biggest Fortnite spenders, having provided US$632.2 million of that impressive US$1 billion total. That's enough money to cover a future free release of The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt at the very least.

by Daniel R Deakin