Epic Games have exploded from a publisher into one of the biggest game companies in the world, thanks to the helping hand of Fortnite.
With this explosion in popularity comes more money and much more notoriety. Needless to say, if someone is making money through your store, you might want a piece of the pie — the apple pie?
Epic vs. Apple Lawsuit Explained
This is exactly what Apple did when Fortnite was finally brought to Apple devices and smartphones. Apple takes 30% of all transactions made on its store. This applies to skins and V-bucks.
Rather cunningly, Epic figured out a way to circumvent the extra cost Apple applied to V-Bucks and essentially allowed Epic to cut them out. You could choose to buy V-Bucks directly from Epic Games at a lower rate.
That same day, the game was delisted from the store and you couldn't play it anymore. In retaliation, Epic Games put out a 1984 parody video and threatened to sue. In the ongoing trial, the following document was revealed.
How Much do the Epic Games Store Free Games Cost?
A savvy Twitter user spotted this chart among the leaked documents from the trial. This is the first nine months of free games on the store.
Some noteworthy additions here are Subnautica, which was bought by Epic for the service for a whopping $1.4 million, and Metro 2033 Redux at nothing.
This could be a result of the exclusivity deal they had with Metro Exodus or perhaps a form of marketing to get more people to try out the sequels.
This is what they paid to get the games free on the store for just a single month. To the right of the buyout price is an indication of new accounts, meaning they attribute their substantial growth to these games.
What Does This Mean for the Future?
Outside of the trial itself, the transparency of these figures are very important. A potential indie dev can now understand how much games are worth to Epic. They can look at equivalent games alongside new epic accounts and really know what they're worth.
This could mean games are much more expensive for Epic to buy going forward.