According to the data:

The numbers

• Total users of Epic Games Store PC: 230 million (up 19% year-on-year)
• Epic cross-platform accounts: 732 million
• Daily active users peak: 34.3 million
• Monthly active users: 68 million (up 10%)

• Total spending, incl. Epic’s games: $820 million (down 2%)
• Spending on third-party games: $355 million (up 18%)
• Free games claimed: 700 million
• Number of new PC releases: 626
• Total library of PC games: 1,548 (up 68%)

Epic Games stated on it’s blog that more PC games launched during the 2022 year than in any year prior.

Fortnite, Grand Theft Auto 5, Rocket League, Genshin Impact, and Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands were among the most popular titles related to player engagement and player spending, and Epic Games looks to deepen their focus in 2023 as they aim to improve the store launcher’s performance.

Epic Games also aims to add support for subscription services from third-party publishers and live service products by the end of the 2023 year, adding that they are also working on ‘content hubs’ which will be separate from product pages and will enable publishers to “share information with users in a robust editorial format.”

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Per the announcement, Epic Games will pay $275 million for violating the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) and another $245 million for design relying on dark patterns “to dupe millions of players into making unintentional purchases”.

Some of the privacy violations included collecting personal information from children under 13 without parental consent or notification, as well as enabling voice and text chat for children and teens by default.

The FTC stated that employees at Epic Games had pushed for the company to make voice and text chat an opt-in feature as early as 2017, however Epic Games slowed on making changes despite reports of online harassment and sexual harassment towards children while playing Fortnite.

FTC also added that when Epic Games did add a button to turn off voice chat, they made it hard to find for users.

Additionally, the FTC (dark patterns complaint) referenced “counterintuitive, inconsistent, and confusing button configuration” and single-button purchases that meant users could accidentally buy something when trying to wake the game from sleep mode or while on a loading screen. Epic Games also put the button to preview an item in Fortnite adjacent to the purchase button, and Fortnite allowed children to purchase the V-Bucks virtual currency without parental consent or card holder action until 2018, and it locked the accounts of users who disputed unauthorized charges through their credit card companies. resulting in accidental purchases.

The FTC also determined that Epic Games ignored millions of user complaints about the wrongful charges and then used internal testing that made the cancel and refund features far more difficult for users to locate.

Epic Games said it would be “moving beyond long-standing industry practices.”

“No developer creates a game with the intention of ending up here,” the company said in an official statement. “The video game industry is a place of fast-moving innovation, where player expectations are high and new ideas are paramount. Statutes written decades ago don’t specify how gaming ecosystems should operate. The laws have not changed, but their application has evolved and long-standing industry practices are no longer enough. We accepted this agreement because we want Epic to be at the forefront of consumer protection and provide the best experience for our players.

“Over the past few years, we’ve been making changes to ensure our ecosystem meets the expectations of our players and regulators, which we hope will be a helpful guide for others in our industry.”

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It all kicks off on January 21st, when the shop will officially add X Games-inspired items which will be available until January 24th. The items will return on January 28th, and be available until January 31st.

The items include the X Games Octane Decal, X Games Wheels, and Snowblind Topper, and there will also be two free items: the X-Skis Player Banner and the X-Board Player Banner.

Furthermore, that  RLCS X Games: North America Regional is set to run online from January 23rd through January 24th and also January 30th – January 31st. The regional is both an official part of RLCS X and the official X Games Aspen event, but is limited to North American esports teams, and can be viewed on the ESPN App, Twitch, or YouTube.

For more additional details, visit their official website.

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Terms of the acquisition were not disclosed.

“Members of the Rad team will partner closely with Epic’s rendering, animation, insights, and audio teams, integrating key tech and improvements across Unreal Engine and beyond,” Epic said in an official statement.

“Rad and Epic combining forces will allow even more developers access to tools that make their games load and download faster, and offer their players a better, higher quality video and gaming experience.”

Rad will continue working with companies beyond Epic, regardless if they are using Unreal Engine or not.

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Coral Castle, which is located on the South Dixie Highway in Miami, is also known as Florida’s Stonehenge and is currently closed, according to Google.

Fortnite recently introduced a virtual Coral Castle during the new season in Fortnite, but Coral Castle, Inc. trademarked the name and they claim that Epic’s location is similar in other ways such as “nautical/beach motifs, castle structures, partial castle walls, and stone objects” adding that both the real Coral Castle and virtual Coral Castle “evoke the feeling of a centuries old mysterious place.”

Coral Castle lawyers cite the Florida Deceptive and Unfair Trade Practices Law, and are looking to be rewarded monetary damages associated with the confusion, and for unauthorized use of their trademark.

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Epic announced on Wednesday that a free service which supports cross-platform play across all major platforms “to the full extent each platform allows per-title.”

“At Epic, our goal is to help game developers succeed. Throughout 2019, we’ll be launching a large set of cross-platform game services originally built for Fortnite, and battle-tested with 200,000,000 players across 7 platforms. These services will be free for all developers, and will be open to all engines, all platforms, and all stores. As a developer, you’re free to choose mix-and-match solutions from Epic and others as you wish.”

Here is the roadmap:

• Cross-Platform Login, Friends, Presence, Profile, and Entitlements (coming Q2-Q3 2019 to PC, other platforms throughout 2019): Provides the core functionality for persistently recognizing players across multiple sessions and devices; identifying friends; and managing free and paid item entitlements. This will support all 7 major platforms (PC, Mac, iOS, Android, PlayStation, Xbox, Switch) to the full extent each platform allows per-title.
• PC/Mac Overlay API (coming Q3 2019): Provides a user interface for login, friends, and other features in a game-agnostic, engine-agnostic way.
• Cross-Platform Voice Comms (coming Q3 2019 to all platforms): Epic is building a new in-game voice communications service supporting all platforms, all stores, and all engines, which will be available for free. (For developers needing an immediately-available voice solution, check out Discord, Vivox, TeamSpeak, Ventrilo, and Mumble.)
• Cross-Platform Parties and Matchmaking (coming Q3-4 2019 to all platforms)
• Cross-Platform Data Storage, Cloud-Saved Games (coming Q2 2019)
• Cross-Platform Achievements and Trophies (coming Q3 2019)

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According to the latest blog update from Epic Games, here is what is heading to Fortnite:

Turbo Building
“Turbo Building” allows you to hold down primary fire and continuously place the selected building piece (Toggled in the Game options). Now you can “paint” building pieces into the world quickly. This will be very useful for defensively building walls around you and sprinting up ramps while building them simultaneously.

Automatic Material Swapping
“Auto Change Materials” will switch to another material when your current supply runs dry(this can be toggled in the Game options). In addition to “Turbo Building” this makes the building process fast and simple. It also allows for quick defensive structures from flanking with less input and worry about running out of a particular material.

Build Through Stuff
Sometimes it’s frustrating when your placement is blocked unexpectedly and you aren’t sure why. Currently, smaller objects like furniture and shrubs are destroyed when you build over them, but trees, rocks and vehicles can still get in the way. We’ve changed the building system to allow you place structures right through large objects, meaning you can now build pretty much anywhere at anytime!

NOTE: Player structures must still be supported by the terrain and other buildings. For example: A sky ramp that passes through a tree will still fall if the connection to the terrain or floor is destroyed.

Switching Building Pieces (Battle Royale only, for now)
Switching between building pieces can sometimes feel laggy or unpredictable, especially on controllers. To improve this, we’ve changed the network code so cycling through building pieces no longer requires a round trip to Epic’s servers. Initially this improvement will be Battle Royale only, but we’re working to bring it to Save the World!

Though the above changes are only coming to Battle Royale to begin with, it will be arriving later for their first game mode: Save the World. Haven’t checked that aspect of the title out yet? Now’s a great time because all editions of the game outside of the free Royale mode are half off for a limited time!

That’s not all as Epic Games has teased a John Wick Character Skin and a brand new weapon.

An Epic Games employee going by the name ‘arctyczyn’ responded to comments that the new character resembles movie character John Wick by saying: “The name’s Jason … Jason Wick. He has a particular set of skills” and also teasing more information about the character coming on Thursday.

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Epic Games issued an apology regarding it’s decision.

Hey Everyone,

It’s with heavy hearts we’ve decided to close down Paragon.

We truly appreciate everything you’ve put into Paragon. We received many passionate ideas for where to take the game; the outpouring of thoughtful suggestions is another testament to this incredible community.

After careful consideration, and many difficult internal debates, we feel there isn’t a clear path for us to grow Paragon into a MOBA that retains enough players to be sustainable.

We didn’t execute well enough to deliver on the promise of Paragon. We have failed you — despite the team’s incredibly hard work — and we’re sorry.

To try to make this right, Epic is offering a full refund to every Paragon player for every purchase on any platform. This refund will come directly from Epic rather than your platform provider.

Epic noted a decline in player population which is the cause for delays in matchmaking times and matchmaking quality, a big change from a time when it had 7 million registered players.

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