Epic Games Store Blamed for Drop in PC Gaming Spending
Last year the Americans spent less on PC games than in 2018. According to analysts, one of the reasons for this was the increased competition in the digital distribution market caused by the aggressive expansion of Epic Games Store.
Competition usually works well for the markets, but there are exceptions to each rule. Last year in the United States, players spent less on PC games, both digital and boxed. According to analysts of the NPD group, Epic Games Store is partly to blame for this.
The increase in revenue from PC games until now has been strongly supported by the convenience provided by Steam. The games that bypass this service are nothing new, but Epic Games Store has gone much further in this than Valve's previous competitors, buying temporary exclusivity for many of last year's highly-anticipated productions. According to NPD analysts, this created a lot of confusion and uncertainty, which in turn made players less willing to spend money.
Only this year will show whether this is a constant trend or just an initial difficulty. First exclusives from Epic Games Store have already started hitting Steam, and others, including such big titles as Metro Exodus and Borderlands 3, will soon join them. It is possible that many PC players have decided to wait for these productions to reach Valve's platform. The only question that arises is whether in the meantime some of them have not lost interest in the games.
A recent SuperData report showed that the delay of the debut on Steam did not prevent the PC version of Red Dead Redemption 2 from achieving great success on Valve's platform, but in this case users had to wait only a month. However, PC users can be patient, as the example of Hades: Battle out of Hell shows. The production was available only on Epic Games Store for a year, and yet it became one of the biggest launches of December on Steam.
In addition, it should be considered the effect of regular giveaway actions on Epic Games Store and the growing popularity of subscription services, which provide cheap access to extensive game libraries. Both Metro Exodus and The Outer Worlds are available as part of the Xbox Game Pass and some players have probably taken advantage of this offer instead of buying the full versions in EGS.
