They could have had it for free in Epic Games Store. Players chose to pay on Steam and surprised the devs

Giving away games on the Epic Games Store is a great way to promote your games on Steam and consoles, says a retro game publisher.

New Blood Interactive has no aversion to Steam and has never been one of the many publishers that tried to challenge Valve. The American company is all about releasing games, but not the big blockbuster ones that can promote an entire platform on their own. They're more into smaller, retro-style titles. Such as the Polish game Blood West, which has greatly benefited from Steam's competition.

Wild West gains on Steam thanks to EGS

The Polish "bloody" western was released over two years ago and did quite well for a pixelated shooter. So much so that in September 2025, a DLC was announced, and in August, version 4.5 was released. In fact, just a week ago, the creators released a small hotfix. Such a long and regular development leaves no doubt about the success of the game.

It wasn't surprising that sales for such a niche title would slow down quickly, even with a pretty low price. In other words, the publisher had no reason not to join Epic Games' giveaway program.

Blood West was available for free for just 24 hours as the fourth Christmas gift from the Epic Games Store. However, it looks like giving away freebies on EGS really paid off, as it helped reach more players on Steam, where sales apparently doubled on the same day.

This information was shared by Dave Oshry, president of New Blood Interactive, in response to a meme about players' reluctance towards EGS (via PC Gamer). The meme was about how some people online supposedly prefer buying a game on sale on Steam rather than getting it for free on the Epic Games Store. As Oshry put it, he previously thought EGS was a "marketing black hole," but "it turns out that giving your game away for free on Epic is great advertising for sales on Steam!"

He mentioned that all the royalties from the EGS "gift" went to the creators at Hyperstrange Studios. Thanks to this and increased sales on Steam, they got a cash boost to work on a new DLC. The publisher itself is also not complaining about the additional copies sold on Steam. And also on consoles, as Oshry confirmed that Blood West benefited from Epic's giveaway beyond just PCs.

But aside from that, the American doesn't think highly of Epic, which is pretty clear from his replies to comments on his post. One of Oshry's shorter jabs sums it up: "Everything that's wrong with EGS is their fault."

Of course, the question remains as to what exactly "200%" means on the day of the Epic Games Store holiday giveaway. Oshry shared a chart, but without values, we don't know if we're talking about hundreds or dozens of copies, or just a few. Nevertheless, it clearly shows that even free games are not enough to make players abandon Steam in favor of the competition. Even if they and most developers agree that Valve has a monopoly on the digital distribution of PC games.

Blood West

December 5, 2023

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• Overview

• Steam
• Polish games
• digital distribution
• game sales
• Epic Games Store