Epic Games Store hit 61 million monthly active users partially thanks to a hugely successful promotional campaign called The Vault. Running between May 14 and through June 18, it offered players a variety of free game giveaways, including some very popular titles such as GTA5 and Civilization VI.
“Since launching the Epic Games Store, we’ve always wanted to create a huge event around our very successful Free Games weekly program to give something awesome to players worldwide, and we decided to go big,” said Steve Allison, general manager of the Epic Games Store, in a statement. “The results have exceeded our expectations… In 2020, we’ve been growing at a historic rate.”
During an interview with GameSpot, Epic Games founder Tim Sweeney said that game developers are seeing better sales after free giveaways:
“People have discovered a lot of great games that way. It’s been a benefit for game developers. Most developers who launch their games for free on the store found that their sales on Steam and on console platforms actually increased after they went free on Epic because of increased awareness and so it’s been a really positive thing and it’s brought tens of millions of new users into the Epic Games ecosystem and that’s been a wonderful thing for the company.”