Epic Games Store gave away 765m free games last year, helping it reach 194m users
User spending on Epic’s marketplace also grew by 20% to $840 million
The Epic Game Store’s user base reached 194 million in 2021, up from 160 million a year earlier.
In a new report summarising the marketplace’s performance in 2021, Epic Games said daily active users peaked at 31.1m, and peak concurrent users hit 13.2 million – both figures were about the same the previous year.
Monthly active users in December rose by 11% to 62 million. As was the case in 2020, the Epic Games Store gave away over 15 games over Christmas 2021, with titles offered free every day from December 16-30.
Daemon X Machina - Launch Date Announcement Trailer
They included Control, Shenmue 3, Neon Abyss, Remnant: From the Ashes, The Vanishing of Ethan Carter, Loop Hero, Second Extinction, Mutant Year Zero: Road to Eden, Vampyr, Pathfinder: Kingmaker, Prey and the Tomb Raider reboot trilogy.
The Epic Games Store gave away 89 free titles in total last year (down from 103 in 2020), with a combined worth of $2,120.
Epic said users claimed over 765 million free games. 76 free games broke their peak concurrent user records on PC, with an average of 13 times their all-time records, it claimed.
Daemon X Machina is currently free to download from the Epic Games Store. It will be followed by Yooka-Laylee and the Impossible Lair, which will be available free from February 3-10.
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The Epic Games Store library reached 917 titles last year, up from 471 games in 2020 and 190 titles in 2019.
PC players spent a total of $840 on Epic’s marketplace in 2021, including $300 million on third-party games. These figures were up from $700 million and $265 million in 2020 respectively.
Users also spent a total of 6.2 billion hours in-game last year, compared to playtime of 5.7 billion hours in 2020 and 3.35 billion hours in 2019.
