Apparently, I already have F.I.S.T. And I’m not about to actually buy a game just to get some free outfits. So nothing from Epic for me this week.
So them sticking in one of the normally free to play things is a regular thing now?
Welcome to the SDMB!
I think that Apex Legend thing are some bonus items for the game. The game itself is free-to-play (which means they usually get you to pay in other ways).
I’m not sure I’m interested, but I wanted to read about the game, and it’s still listed as $19.99 for me. You sure you got the right link?
no its free they just posted it before the program switched the price over … they don’t do it until 8 am ca time
In the time it took me to log in (in a new browser) and find where they list the freebies, I do now see it as free. I was about to ask it maybe only logged in users could see the deal.
i had to do some weird captcha thing after I claimed it tho …
Some of us didn’t fall for Bethesda’s poisoned bait.
I did too. That was a first.
Seems as The Callisto Protocol is next weeks game, a relatively recent AAA game by the people who did Dead Space originally (not sure about remake). Don’t see the 50 quid games in the free stuff much nowadays, so this is good (not sure about the game though).
I heard the game was a pretty big disappointment, sadly.
Looks like reviews were mixed.
Only person I know who played Callista Protocol hated it but I’d grab it for free and see for myself without money regrets
I tried Callista Protocol and refunded it, but I’ll try it again for free.
A slight diversion from the usual here but I think this will be of interest to most. I have often wondered about why Epic gives away so many free games. Seems a bad idea to do as often as they do but, apparently, it is working for them.
Full Title: Many of Epic’s exclusivity deals were ‘not good investments,’ says Tim Sweeney, but the free games program ‘has been just magical’
Giving away half-a-billion game copies a year, even when paying a small fraction of each copy’s list price, is not cheap. Thanks to documents that came out during Epic’s legal fight with Apple, we learned that the company spent $11.6 million on free games in just the first nine months of the program. Epic has been giving away games for six years now.
However, responding to a question about Epic’s free game strategy on a call with press earlier this week, Epic CEO Tim Sweeney said that it’s been a “very economical” user acquisition program, with the bonus that the budget goes to game developers—a group it’s in a game store’s interest to see thrive—rather than toward Facebook or Google ads.
Kinda sorta maybe, depending on criteria. From Epic Game Store’s 2023 report…
There are now over 270 million Epic Games Store PC users, an increase of 40M from 2022. This makes a total of 804M Epic cross-platform accounts. In 2023 Daily Active Users peaked at 36.1M, and Monthly Active Users reached 75M users – up from last year’s 68M.
Our catalog expanded significantly in 2023, with publishers and developers bringing over 1,300 new PC titles to the store. The Epic Games Store now offers over 2900 titles, increasing the games available to our audience by 88% since 2022. Players spent $310M on 3rd Party applications, down 13% year over year. Including Epic’s own games, players spent over $950M in 2023, up 16% from 2022.
They had 40M more Epic Game Store users in 2023 over 2022 but sold 13% fewer dollars in 3rd party games despite all these new users. Overall sales were up but that’s almost entirely on Fortnite and then titles like Rocket League and other Epic-owned properties. So, if people are making an Epic account to get a free game then decide “Might as well play Fortnite now” and then buy V-Bucks then it might be a good payoff. What they’re not doing is making an Epic account and then going shopping on the Epic Game Store. I assume most users just make a weekly beeline to the free game, add it to their account and then leave until next week.
The exclusivity investments are easier to track: We spent X getting this exclusive game and made Y selling it, does Y>X? The value of “engagement” is much more squishy. During the Apple trial, Epic revealed that it still hadn’t made a profit on the store but that was okay because the goal is still “growth” which will one day turn into profit after [details vague]. As long as they can keep saying Epic Game Store is in “growth mode”, getting more sign-ups can be lauded as a big win even if actual dollars from the store goes down.
All that said, I could see it being a more economical marketing method and more successful than running ads on Google or Facebook. So I don’t doubt that that’s true.
The benefit is a steady stream of eyes on the store’s front page. It’s not so much about Epic Store 2023 versus Epic Store 2022 so much as how much business can we siphon from competitors. Drop in the bucket, I bought The Sims 4 years ago because it had been on my wishlist for a while and I saw the sale en route to my free game.
~Max
I can’t agree with that. The point of the store, to the investors at least, is to make money. If the store is making less money in 2023 than it did in 2022, that’s not a success even if you gave away a game someone else might have sold. The one possible offset is if Epic could make a convincing argument that the new people joining for a free game are later spending money on V-Bucks or related “internal” Epic purchases and are thus making the store indirectly turn a profit.
Steam, incidentally, grew in game sales 17.8% from 2022 to 2023 so obviously wasn’t suffering for any “siphoned” sales. That’s for game software and doesn’t include Steam Deck sales.
I’d be interested in how many people claiming free games even go through the front page. Granted, it may be the bubble I’m in, but I and everyone I know just takes a link right to that game’s giveaway page posted via Discord bot or on gaming news websites (or in this thread) and never touch the front page. Laser Monkeys 3 goes on a free weekly, everyone posts “Hey, Laser Monkeys 3 is the free Epic Weekly at [link]”, and everyone just clicks the link, hits purchase and then goes on their way. But maybe there’s a much larger reservoir of people who actually check the front page weekly for the free game and actually LOOK at the front page versus just scanning it for the weekly game.