Over the holiday season, the Epic Games Store launched a wave of free games, including the supernatural stealth shooter Blood West. However, the results indicate that the biggest beneficiary of this offer was the competitor Steam store.
New Blood Interactive CEO, Dave Oshry, revealed on social media a significant increase in sales of the game on Steam. He shared a graph showing the flow of players towards purchasing Blood West on the Valve platform, despite it being available for free for a limited time through the Epic Games Launcher.
Although the timing shown in the graph does not precisely match the 24-hour free offer period starting on December 20, Oshri believes that the nearly 200% increase in sales was not a coincidence.
He added that making the game available for free on Epic actually turned into an indirect marketing tool for Steam sales, explaining at the same time that the developers received financial compensation from Epic in exchange for the offer.
In a related context, the Epic Games Store continues to achieve remarkable growth supported by the ongoing series of free offers, but Steam still maintains its superiority, having recently crossed the barrier of 42 million concurrent users. Many players attribute this superiority to the community benefits provided by Valve’s platform.
Game forums, a ratings and review system, and DLC workshops play a huge role in enhancing the user experience on Steam. In contrast, the Epic Store suffers from a lack of these features, which is reflected in the user retention rate.
Although it may be tempting to try a game like Blood West at no cost, a large number of players quickly returned to Steam, where their favorite game libraries are gathered. The seasonal sale of the game, which reduced its price from $24.99 to $9.99, also contributed to enhancing its demand and increasing its sales further.
