Epic Games Interesting Key Facts
- Tim Sweeney, founder, and CEO of Epic Games founded Potomac Computer Systems in 1991.
- In 1991, Tim Sweeney created ZZT, an action-adventure puzzle game as his first for-sale game.
- Originally, Potomac Computer Systems was supposed to be a computer consulting business but later became a fully committed video game company following the success of ZZT.
- In early 1992, Tim Sweeney renamed Potomac Computer Systems to Epic MegaGames to make it sound like the name represented a fairly large company even though he was the only employee at the time.
- Tim Sweeney began creating and writing the Unreal Engine in 1995 which was then later used to create their first-person shooter game named Unreal.
- In February 1999, EpicMegaGames became Epic Games when the company moved their headquarters to Cary, North Carolina.
- Epic Games observed that the video game industry was shifting to a games-as-a-service model. In an attempt to keep up with this, Epic Games made an agreement with Tencent.
- Tencent bought 40% of Epic Games’ equity for $330 million in June 2012.
- Following Tencent’s acquisition of the minority stake, a number of high-profile staff left Epic Games. Some of them reasoned that the direction the company was going at the time was no longer in-line with what they believed in when they joined the company.
- Epic Games has since then become extremely unpopular among video game consumers citing distrust in Tencent’s involvement with the company.
- In July 2014, Unreal Engine became the most successful video game engine in the world according to Guiness World of Records.
- In 2020, both Apple Store and Google Play removed Fortnite app from their store following an accusation that Epic Games had bypassed both of their storefronts for in-app purchases.
- Following the removal of Fornite app, Epic Games filed an anti-trust suit against Apple.
Sources: Gamasutra, PC Games, Guiness World of Records, Gamespot, CNET, Den of Geek, CNBC, Polygon
Epic Games Company Overview (About)
Epic Games is one of the most popular gaming platforms. Let’s now have a look at some key information about Epic Games as a company.
At a glance:
How much did you already know about Epic Games?
We guarantee that, in this article, there is going to be information you didn’t hear before.
Sources: Epic Games, Linkedin, Gamasutra
What is Tim Sweeney’s Net Worth?
Tim Sweeney (Epic Games CEO) has a net worth of $7.4 billion as of Q3 2022
After this, we’re going to look at some information about Epic Games’ revenue and profits.
You’ll see that there are strong ties between the CEO’s net worth and the company’s results.
In the meantime, the table below shows you the CEO’s net worth throughout the years.
Source: Forbes
How much is Epic Games worth NET?
Epic Games NET worth is $32 billion USD, according to the last valuation in April 2022. In 2018, the company was worth $15 billion, and now the value is over double what it used to be in the second last valuation.
Let’s have a look at Epic Games’ valuation through the years.
Tencent Holding INC. acquired Epic games 40% of the equity for $330 million at a valuation of $825 million.
So far, there have been four evaluations of Epic Games in the course of 10 years.
See how high EG’s valuation went from 2012 to 2022. That only shows how much relevant the company became in only 10 years.
Source: Bloomberg, Epic Games, CNBC
What is Epic Games’ Revenue?
Epic Games revenue is $5.76 billion according to figures reported in 2021. That is a 12.94% increase in revenue compared to the prior year, as Epic Games revenue was $5.10 billion in 2020.
Epic Games’ revenue is pretty stable if we look at the 2018-2021 graph. It’s always had a pretty signinifact increase.
The table below shows the precise numbers and the increase/decrease in revenue.
Source: Statista
Epic Games’ revenue per segment
Epic Games’ main revenue comes from their own games such as Fortnite and Rocket League. As of 2019 data, revenue coming from their games decreased by 30.90%.
Revenue that comes from both Unreal Engine and EGS decreased by 21.77%.
However, revenue coming from merchandises and others increased by threefold in 2019.
Note how Epic Game’s revenue comes from the following segments: Games, Unreal Engine, Store, and Merch.
Source: Statista
Epic Games Gross Profit
Epic Games has a gross profit of $1.19 billion in 2021 with a decrease of -28.74% from the prior year.
Unfortunatel for Epic Games, gross profit numbers have gone down in the past few years.
Gross profit was the highest in 2018, at $3.7 billion, and then falling down by around $2 million.
Source: Statista
Epic Games Funding History
Their most recent funding was on April 11, 2022, in a venture round that raised $2 billion.
Epic Games has a total number of 11 funding rounds and has raised $6.4 billion funding amount.
KIRKBI A/S and Sony were the lead investors of the latest funding round. The table below shows us a more detailed look at Epic Games’ funding history.
Source: Crunchbase
Epic Games Investments
Epic Games has made a total of 21 investments through the years. They are the lead investors in 11 investments.
The table below shows us Epic Games’ 10 most recent investments.
Their most recent investment was on November 16, 2022, which raised $11 million for Arcturus.
Source: Crunchbase
Epic Games Acquisitions
Epic games acquired Bandcamp on March 2, 2022.
Note how Epic Games has made a total of 18 acquisitions.
Source: Crunchbase
How does Epic Games make money?
Epic Games earns money from three segments.
First, they earn money through Unreal Engine. Epic games earn royalties through games that are run by Unreal Engine. They earn 5% of the lifetime gross revenue of a game if it exceeds $1 million.
Second, Epic games earn through their premium games, most of their revenue in this segment comes from Fortnite, a free-to-play game. Revenue comes from Fortnite through in-app purchases with V-bucks.
Third, Epic Games Store takes a 12% cut on each game sale. So these three mostly make up Epic Games’ revenue.
Source: Unreal Engine, Four Week MBA
How many people work on Epic Games?
As of December 2022, Epic games has over 8,200 employees as per LinkedIn data.
Observe how, with each new year at Epic Games, there are more people employed for the company.
The table below shows data about how many people were working for Epic Games in the past few years.
In 2016, there were just 200 people hired at Epic Games. Six years later, you can see how 8,000 more people were working for the company.
Sources: Polygon
What are the most popular games on Epic Games?
In 2020, these are the most popular titles on Epic Games.
- Assassin’s Creed: Valhalla
- Satisfactory
- Fortnite
- Snow Runner
- Godfall
- Borderlands 3
- Rocket League
- Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 1+2
- Grand Theft Auto 5
- Rogue Company
Source: Epic Games
What are the biggest games on Epic Games?
In 2021, these were the biggest games on Epic games.
- Final Fantasy VII Remake Integrade
- Hitman 3
- Grand Theft Auto 5
- Far Cry 6
- Chivalry 2
- Darkest Dungeon
- Fornite
- Kena: Bridge of Spirits
- Rocket League
- Genshin Impact
Source: Epic Games
What are the most played games on Epic Games?
As of December 2022, these are the most played games on Epic Games.
- Fortnite
- Rocket League
- Grand Theft Auto 5: Premium Edition
- Genshin Impact
- Fall Guys
- Valorant
- Naraka: Bladepoint
- Red Dead Redemption 2
- Sid Meier’s Civilization VI
- Dead by Daylight
Source: Epic Games
How many genres does Epic Games Store have?
As of December 2022, Epic Games has 34 genres in their store. Some of these genres are:
- action-adventure games
- horror games
- card games
- city builder games
- indie games
- and more.
Source: Epic Games
How much money does Epic Games make from Fortnite?
Epic Games made $9 billion from Fortnite in 2018 and 2019 combined. Epic Games does not normally share this type of information.
However, Epic Games’ revenue was revealed in 2021 during Epic vs Apple anti-trust suit.
As for the recent data, revenue that is coming from Fortnite remains undisclosed.
Sources: IGN, Box
How many active Fortnite players are there?
There are currently 250 million active Fortnite players.
As we can see in the table below, there is a slow and steady decline of active players starting in December 2021.
It’s most likely that the updates after December 2021 made the playing experience worse for some players, and hence, they’ve stopped playing the game.
Though, only Epic Games may be the ones to know the real answer.
Source: Active Player
Top earners in Fortnite by prize money earned (US)
Fornite can be played for fun and can be played competitively. Epic Games have been hosting various tournaments through the years.
Let’s have a look at who are the top earners in Fortnite by prize money in the US.
Kyle Giersdorf , most commonly known as Bugha, earned the most prize money as of 2022.
Coming in second place is Harrison Chang (psalm) who has earned a total of $1.87 million so far.
Source: Statista
Top earners in Fortnite by prize money earned (UK)
Jaden Ashman or most commonly known as ‘Wolfiez’ is the top earner in Fortnite by prize money in UK. He has earning of $1.35 million followed closely by Kyle Jackson (Mongraal) with $695,000 earnings.
In this table you can see the UK’s top Fornite earners, listed from the most prize money earned to the least.
Source: Statista
How many downloads did Fornite have on Apple Store and Google Play?
Fortnite Mobile had a total of 129 million downloads before it was taken out of Apple Store and Google Play.
This information was revealed during the Apple vs Epic Games lawsuit, wherein court proceedings revealed that Fortnite Mobile was downloaded 116 million times in Apple Store.
The game was released for iOS on March 12, 2018. Meanwhile, before it was removed, there were a total of 13 million downloads in Google play and was launched on April 20, 2020.
Sources: GameSpot, Gadgets 360, Fortnite Archive
How many Epic Games users are there
In 2021, Epic games has 194 million users, with a 21.25% increase in year-over-year growth.
Ever since 2019, Epic Games has had over 100 million users.
Sources: Epic Games 1, Epic Games 2
How many Epic Games users are active per month?
In December 2021, Epic Games had an average peak of 62 million monthly active users, an increase of 11% increase in year-over-year growth.
In 2020, there was an impressive 75% increase in monthly active years compared to 2019’s.
The table below shows data from 2019 to 2021.
Source: Epic Games 1, Epic Games 2
How many Epic Games users are active per day?
Epic Games had an average peak of 31.1 million daily active users in 2021 with 13.2 million peak concurrent users.
Epic Games DAU has a slight decrease compared to the prior year.
Source: Epic Games 1, Epic Games 2
Epic Games user’s age distribution
Most of the Epic Games users are ages 18 to 24 with 35.90% of the user population.
These data are calculations made from estimations based on EpicGames.com’s web traffic.
Source: Similarweb
Epic Games user’s gender distribution
There are more male than female Epic Game Users according to an estimation based on EpicGames.com’s web traffic.
Epic Games’ audience consists more of males rather than females, with 82.6% of the total audience being males.
Source: Similarweb
How many developers are using Unreal Engine?
In 2019, there were 7.5 million developers using Unreal Engine. It’s 6 million more users when it was first released for free in March 2015.
As for the most recent data, there are still no valid and reliable data about the current number of developers or companies using Unreal Engine.
Sources: Venture Beat, Unreal Engine, CNBC, Games Industry, IGN
What is the total playtime of all players in the Epic Games Store?
Epic Games store community played a total of 6.2 billion hours in 2021, an increase of 8.77% from 2020.
Source: Epic Games 1, Epic Games 2
How many games are in the Epic Games Store?
There were a total of 917 game titles in Epic Games Stores in 2021, that’s almost 2x what they sell in 2020. In 2022, Epic games offered 1,600 games and add-on features at discounts for the Mega Epic Games Sale. With this information, we can assume that Epic Games has more than a thousand game titles in its store as of 2022.
Source: Epic Games 1, Epic Games 2
How much money does Epic Games Store take per each game sold?
Epic Games applies an 88/12 split when it comes to revenue earned through the store, of which 88% goes to the publishers/developers and 12% to Epic Games. They also stated that 12% of the revenue share covers the operating costs of running the store and making a profit out of it.
Source: Epic Games
How many games has Epic Games Store given for free?
Epic Games has collaborated with developers and publishers to give away 89 games in 2021 with a total market value of $2,120.
Sources: Epic Games 1, Epic Games 2
How many free games were claimed by the users in Epic Games Store?
Epic Games users have claimed a total of 765 million free games in 2021.
Sources: Epic Games 1, Epic Games 2
Does Epic Games make a profit by giving out free games?
The common misconception that most people assume is that Epic Games pay a boatload of money for the free games that they give away.
However, Tim Sweeney revealed in 2021 that they are not actually paying per piece of the game sold but instead paid a fixed amount agreed upon with the publishers and developers.
During the Epic Games vs Apple Anti Trust lawsuit, proposed findings by Apple indicated that Epic Games are “losing” at least $400 million in minimum guarantees for 2020 alone as opposed to the billions of dollars cost for the hundreds of millions of free games claimed.
Tim Sweeney refuted the “losing” part and announced in one of his tweet that it’s an investment worth spending on.
Source: The Verge, Epic Games, Twitter
How much money did PC users spend on Epic Games Store?
Epic Games PC users have spent $840 million on Epic Games Store in 2021, which is $140 million more than the prior year.
Sources: Epic Games 1, Epic Games 2
How much money did PC users spend on third-party games on EGS?
Sources: Epic Games 1, Epic Games 2
How many games have Epic Games created?
Epic Games has created and developed a total of 40 games through the years.
Aside from Fortnite, there are also other famous titles that Epic Games created such as the Gears of War series, which was then sold to Xbox in 2014.
It should also be noted that Epic Games have ownership of Rocket League through the company’s acquisition of Psyonix.
Sources: The Verge, GameSpot
How many creator codes are used on third-party EGS purchases?
In 2021, there were a total of 4.75 million creator codes used on third-party Epic Game Store purchases an increase of 11.24% in year-over-year growth.
Sources: Epic Games 1, Epic Games 2
Top Countries Using Epic Games
These are the top countries that are using Epic games.
Source: Similarweb
Time spent using Epic Games
As of November 2022, the average time spent visiting epicgames.com is:
Source: Similarweb
Where is Epic Games available (in which countries)?
Epic Games is almost available in almost every country except for North Korea and Iran. Epic Games also added that in certain regions, there might be additional legal requirements needed to be implemented before developers can distribute their games.
Source: Epic Games
Epic Games Traffic Summary
Source: HypeStat
Epic Games Website Traffic Sources
Source: HypeStat
Epic Games Traffic Source: Desktop vs Mobile
Users visit epicgames.com more through mobile according to Hypestat with 73.28% of the traffic coming from mobile devices.
- 26.72% of the users visit the website through desktop devices
- 73.28% of the users visit the website through mobile devices
Source: HypeStat