Epic says there are now over 500 million Epic Games accounts

Epic Games announced on Wednesday that there are now more than 500 million Epic Games accounts. This is a notable milestone as Epic continues to build out the Epic Games Store as a competitor to Steam and brings in new players for titles such as Fortnite and Rocket League. Epic didn't share further details about that 500 million, however, so it's unclear how many of those accounts represent people who only play Epic's own games (such as Fortnite) or who only play Epic's stores. play. is used.

Since its launch in December 2018 the company has put an enormous amount of resources into growing its PC game store — and therefore, getting more people to sign up for accounts. For example, a document from the Epic vs. Apple trial showed that Epic had $330 million in non-refundable costs from paying developers to distributing their games on its stores in 2020 alone. Another document revealed that more than 7 million people tried the Epic Games Store because of its Grand Theft Auto V giveaway — despite an 8-hour outage due to the freebie. Epic has committed to offering free games again in 2022, so it looks like the company thinks the cost is worth it to bring in users.

Epic is making a lot of use of its Unreal Engine developer tools; The company announced that 48 percent of "announced next-gen games" are being built on the platform.