Sedan 2018 har Epic Game Store konkurrerat med framförallt Steam om datorspelarnas uppmärksamhet. För att slå sig in på marknaden för digitala spelaffärer har Epic nyttjat främst två taktiker, nämligen exklusiviteter och gratisspel. I en ny intervju utvärderade Epic-chefen Tim Sweeney dessa två affärsstrategier.
Sweeney om gratisspel:
"Giving away free games seems counterintuitive as a strategy, but companies spend money to acquire users into games. [...] For about a quarter of the price that it costs to acquire users through Facebook ads or Google Search Ads, we can pay a game developer a lot of money for the right to distribute their game to our users, and we can bring in new users to the Epic Games Store at a very economical rate."
"And you might think that this would hurt the sales prospects of games on the Epic Game Store, but developers who give away free games actually see an upsurge in the sale of their paid games on the store, just because their free game raises awareness. And it's so much that often developers, when they're about to launch a new game, come with us wanting to work closely on a timed release of a free game, just to drive user awareness of their next game. That's been an awesome thing. And it's been by far the most cost effective aspect of the Epic Games Store."
Kombinationen av att släppa äldre titlar gratis, som ökar uppmärksamheten för utvecklarens spel, och vanliga betalsläpp, har tydligen varit en kanonstrategi för både Epic och respektive utvecklare enligt Sweeney. Däremot har exklusiviteter många gånger varit en mindre lyckosam taktik.
Sweeney om exklusiviteter:
"We spent a lot of money on exclusives. A few of them worked extremely well. A lot of them were not good investments, but the free games program has been just magical."
Om vi får tro Sweeney lär vi alltså få se mer av gratisspel och mindre av exklusiviteter i framtiden. Den som lever får se, men för oss gamers låter det onekligen som det bästa alternativet.
Fler gratistitlar och mindre exklusiviteter framöver, verkar det som.