Fall Guys hits 50 million players two weeks after freemium switch

gamedeveloper.com:

Fall Guys has amassed 50 million players two weeks after being relaunched as a free-to-play title.

Mediatonic broke the news on social media, with the latest milestone arriving shortly after the launch of the "Free For All" update on June 21, 2022.

The bumbling survival platformer had already breezed past the 20 million player mark within 48 hours of its relaunch, but has now more-than-doubled that total.

Fall Guys initially launched as a premium title in 2020, priced at around $20 alongside a month-long stint as a free title on PlayStation's PlayStation Plus service. The game found early (and pandemic-aided) success as a premium title, both crossing 11 million sold on PC before the end of 2020 and becoming the then-most downloaded PS+ game.

The shift away from premium and toward free-to-play is a more recent decision. Mediatonic hinted at plans to pivot towards the freemium model after the studio was purchased by Epic Games in March 2021, saying at the time that the acquisition would help it both reach and support a larger Fall Guys community. The move was fully unveiled alongside support for cross-play earlier this year via the Fall Guys: Free for All update.

Notably, the free-to-play shift also resulted in the game being pulled from Steam to become an Epic Games Store exclusive on PC, though existing Steam owners will still be able to receive updates and play the game without hopping over to Epic Games' competing platform.

The bean-infused battle royale is also available on console platforms including PlayStation, Xbox, and Nintendo Switch.

We're in absolute disbelief...50 million players in 2 weeks!!!U N B E L I E V A B L ETHANKS EVERYONE!