The Epic Games store reached a monstrous milestone over the past month, reaching 61 million monthly active users on PC.
This number was thanks to a “top-secret free game giveaway each week that players could acquire and keep forever,” Epic said in a press release.
The secret is out now. It was called “The Vault” campaign, which ran from May 14 through June 18 in several countries around the globe. The free games were Grand Theft Auto V, Civilization VI, Borderlands: The Handsome Collection, Overcooked, Samurai Showdown NeoGeo Collection, and Ark Survival Evolved. The Escapists was planned to be part of the campaign but was delayed due to technical issues.
The average peak concurrent users on PC hit 13 million and monthly active users on PC was over 61 million. “We invested in acquiring the rights to give four of the biggest games in the world away free,” Steve Allison, the general manager for Epic Games Store, said. “In 2020, we’ve been growing at a historic rate.”
Part of that number can be attributed to Fortnite, since the Epic Games Store is the only launcher for Fortnite on PC and the game hits an average peak concurrent users on PC of 13 million players.
The Epic Games Store launched in December 2018 and is the main competitor of Valve’s Steam. It’s know for its weekly free games and has offered developers generous deals for exclusivity. Epic offers an 88-percent cut of revenue for titles published through its store while Valve offers developers 70-percent.
In comparison, Steam has 100 million users, according to Valve. Three months ago, Steam set its all-time user concurrent peak of 24.5 million. But it may not be not long until Epic catches up to Valve.