Category: March

Well, it’s that time of year again! The Epic Games Store has released a new Year in Review for 2023 so I thought I’d write an article discussing it as well as some other information about the Epic Games Store. I admit that I was debating with myself on whether or not to write this post due to a concern that the information may grow repetitive with regards to previous articles covering the Epic Game Store’s Year in Reviews but I was buoyed by some other information we received regarding the Epic Games Store and decided that it was still worth covering. Without further ado then, let’s take a look at how the Epic Games Store is continuing to flounder so many years after its release.

Let’s start, of course, by looking at the new Year in Review and comparing it to the last one. I also do want to commend Epic Games for, if nothing else, their courage for continuing to do these Year in Reviews even when the results are sure to generate unfavourable headlines like the one above. Let’s start by looking at the aspects that are more favourable to Epic. Total PC users of the Epic Games Store has continued to grow with 270 million compared to the 230 million of last year. Monthly active users has also grown from 68 million to 75 million and, as a whole, revenue is up (more on that later). Their social media presence has also grown with an increase of 100,000 followers on Instagram, 300,000 followers on Twitter and a remarkable 444,000 on TikTok, that last one being a growth of 148%!

I remember thinking to myself, many years ago, about the concept of video games being exclusive to particular platforms and, for the first time, thought about how silly the mere concept was! “After all, Blu-ray discs don’t require specific players to function! Why should video games be any different?” were my thoughts and, while it isn’t quite as simple as that, we now see that the industry is beginning to think this as well. Therefore, I thought I might discuss video game exclusivity, why it’s dying and why that’s fantastic news!

For as long as the video game industry has existed, there have been games exclusive to particular platforms. Limitations were certainly a factor in this since many earlier games used Assembly language, a programming language which prevented programs from being released on multiple devices. This meant that the same game released on different platforms at the time were actually completely different titles and would have their own quirks and differences! However, the advent of high-level programming languages meant that titles were no longer restricted to specific hardware and could be released across multiple platforms. Despite this, we have seen video game exclusivity make its way into the present day with numerous titles artificially restricted due to contractual agreements. The idea was that video game exclusivity helped to move hardware by creating an artificial and, usually, unnecessary difference between platforms that would influence consumer decisions and spending.