Epic Games' free game giveaways have been "magical" for user acquisition
But some of its exclusivity deals were "not good investments"
Epic Games' Tim Sweeney has admitted that whilst its free game giveaways have been good for business, many of its exclusivity deals were "not good investments."
In a recent press call, Epic CEO Sweeney talked candidly about Epic Games Store's user acquisition methods, but acknowledged that whilst "a few of [its EGS exclusives] worked extremely well", "a lot of them were not good investments."
Conversely, Sweeney said its free games program has been "just magical" and "very economical," even though the idea of giving away its games may seem "counterintuitive" at first.
"Giving away free games seems counterintuitive as a strategy, but companies spend money to acquire users into games," Sweeney said, as transcribed by PC Gamer.
"For about a quarter of the price that it costs to acquire users through Facebook ads or Google Search Ads, we can pay a game developer a lot of money for the right to distribute their game to our users, and we can bring in new users to the Epic Games Store at a very economical rate.
"And you might think that this would hurt the sales prospects of games on the Epic Game Store, but developers who give away free games actually see an upsurge in the sale of their paid games on the store, just because their free game raises awareness," Sweeney added.
"And it's so much that often developers, when they're about to launch a new game, come with us wanting to work closely on a timed release of a free game, just to drive user awareness of their next game. That's been an awesome thing. And it's been by far the most cost-effective aspect of the Epic Games Store."
The Epic Games Store launched on mobile last Friday (August 16).
The Fortnite firm announced it will be bringing its games marketplace to Android worldwide, and to iOS in the European Union thanks to this year's Digital Markets Act requiring Apple to enable third-party stores on its mobile ecosystem.