Aside from Fortnite and the Unreal Engine, another epic achievement accomplished by video game developer and publisher Epic Games is winning over the largest audience in the gaming sector, making it the most popular gaming brand.
According to Businessfinancing.co.uk, Epic Games garnered the most number of searches on Google within its industry. It prevailed over Nintendo, a beloved veteran among gamers worldwide.
Businessfinancing.co.uk’s findings are quite impressive, considering the gap between these gaming brands are of epic proportions — Nintendo has been running for over a century while Epic Games can be considered a millennial, having operated for only thirty years.
The researchers first gathered the top brands in different industries based on key sources, such as Forbes. After collecting the top brand names, they used Google Keyword Planner to determine the number of searches for each brand in the past year, regionally and sectorally.
What Is Epic Games?
Epic Games dominated the globe’s Google-based searches in the video game industry. Businessfinancing.co.uk found it is the “most searched” brand — a metric indicating popularity — in 141 countries, totaling 4.7 million searches worldwide. Nintendo ranked highest in 24 countries.
Epic Games is one of the leading video game publishers and producers around the world. It is the creator of both the game Fortnite (2017) and the game engine Unreal, which is known for developing triple-A titles.
Founded by its CEO Tim Sweeney, the American gaming company has been growing steadily for 30 years — with a few setbacks. According to Screen Rant, Epic Games was at risk of closing. Thankfully, Tencent, a Chinese tech company, acquired a 48.4% stake in Epic Games, saving the company from dissolution. But today, Epic Games appears to have recovered from their losses, and more.
Who Else Did It Beat?
In Businessfinancing.co.uk’s findings, Epic Games bested other household names in the video game industry besides Nintendo. The third most popular gaming company according to the group’s research is Gameloft. Gameloft is a game development and publishing company established in the late ‘90s, according to its website. Its founder Michel Guillemot had also co-founded another industry giant Ubisoft. According to Businessfinancing.co.uk, Ubisoft is commonly searched in Thailand and South Korea.
The fourth-placer in the group’s research is Atari, a pioneer in arcade games. One of its popular games is Pong (1972), one of the first arcade games to ever exist. After declaring bankruptcy in early 2013, Atari has since returned to the playing field, branching out to other platforms.
Coming in at fifth place is Activision, a game studio that has published one of the most popular video games in the market — Call of Duty (2003). The report says it dominated several countries, such as Samoa and Timor-Leste. A few other brands the research includes are Konami, Bioware, 1C Company, and Rare, among others.
Why Is Epic Games Surpassing Nintendo A Big Deal?
When you look at the other brands Epic Games was against, you will notice many of them have been in the business for more decades than the Fortnite producer. Atari, for example, is one of the pioneers that shaped the video game industry as we know it today. And the same goes for Activision, whose founders used to be part of the Atari team.
This stresses the importance of consciously making the effort to cater to your audience, as well as the impact of making sure you capitalize on the trends in your niche. It also shows how quickly the video game industry evolves. There is a consequential need for you to know advancements in the tech industry and the new ways in which gameplay can be configured.
However, as a store, Epic Games is still rather far behind the race compared to Steam. Eurogamer says Steam’s daily user count in 2020 was 62.6 million, whereas Epic Games Store had 31.3 million, only 50% of Steam’s audience. Still, this is a huge increase from Epic Games Store’s daily users in 2019, which was around 7 million, the report says.
What Might Have Caused Epic Games’ Increased Popularity?
Epic Games being the most searched gaming brand is not a sudden accomplishment. Since its establishment in 1991, the company has released video games whose popularity endures until today. They produced widely played titles, such as Fortnite, Grand Theft Auto V (2013), and Assassin’s Creed Valhalla (2020). And like we said, they also built one of the best C++ game engines, Unreal Engine.
PCMag reports in May 2020 alone, Fortnite had more than 350 million players worldwide. In 2018, the online video game’s battle royale mode became a hit, which earned Epic Games about $3 billion, an article in Screen Rant says.
These wins, alongside its regular updates for Fortnite and crossover content, are presumably the reasons why Epic Games is the leading brand on Google Search, Screen Rant notes in the same article.
In Summary
Businessfinancing.co.uk conducted research on various companies across sectors and countries to see which brands are the most searched, and therefore most popular, on the commonly used search engine Google.
According to their findings, Epic Games is the most popular brand in the gaming sector, whose search volume in 141 countries exceeds the searches of other popular brands, including Nintendo, Gameloft, Atari, and Activision.
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