Epic has shared its end-of-year stat roundup for the Epic Games Store, and there are some pretty impressive numbers on display. Last year, for instance, the store enjoyed over 230 million total PC customers, and those customers redeemed 700 million free games between them.
You can see more fun stats in the actual roundup itself, where Epic talks about the year it's had and looks ahead to what's coming in the rest of 2023. Across the year of 2022, the store had 68 million monthly active users and 34.3 million daily active users at its peak. 99 free games were offered up, with a total value of $2,240. Not bad.
626 new games were released for the Epic Store in 2022, bringing the storefront's total catalog count to 1,548 games. The most popular titles on the service in terms of player spend and engagement were Genshin Impact, Rocket League, Tiny Tina's Wonderlands, Grand Theft Auto V (no doubt bolstered by GTA Online), and Fortnite.
One big new feature that's arrived today is the ability for developers to self-publish their games, which went into closed beta back in 2021. Today, the tools are available for everyone, but you'll need to meet certain requirements, including PC crossplay across all storefronts and implementing Epic Store achievements. Make sure to read the full FAQ if you're planning to launch your game with Epic.
Looking ahead to the future, Epic says that its priority for 2023 will be to focus on its launcher performance. As such, the main feature in the pipeline is an improvement to launcher loading times and "end-to-end user experience" improvements across the whole platform. Other improvements on the way include third-party publisher and live-service subscription support, as well as content hubs containing game news.
If you're worried about not getting any more free games, rest assured that Epic's free games program is continuing into this year. Plenty of premium paid games are on their way to the store in 2023, too, including roguelite shooter Witchfire, long-awaited horror sequel Alan Wake II, and the perennially-delayed (although not anymore) Dead Island 2. Make sure to take a look at Epic's 2022 roundup if you want even more fun stats about the storefront and its games.
