The World of Epic
Step into the expansive universes of Epic Games, where millions of players connect, create, and compete daily.
Epic Games: Cloud Migration Case Study
From on-premise data centers to global cloud dominance—how Epic Games transformed its infrastructure to power Fortnite and Unreal Engine for 350 million players worldwide.
The Epic Journey Begins
Company Origins
Founded in 1991, Epic Games built legendary titles like Gears of War before revolutionizing gaming with Fortnite and Unreal Engine.
The company embarked on a transformative cloud migration journey starting in 2012, achieving full AWS adoption by 2018.
The Infrastructure Challenge
Before AWS, Epic's on-premise build farm struggled with severe limitations that threatened their ability to scale.
Limited Scale
Only 270 machines with 3,200 cores—insufficient for global demand
I/O Bottlenecks
Cache saturation and storage constraints slowed development cycles
Regional Latency
Static infrastructure caused delays during massive player events
Operational Risk
Load spikes threatened system stability and player experience
AWS: The Technical Solution
Epic migrated to a cloud-native AWS environment, leveraging cutting-edge services to overcome scale and performance barriers.
Amazon EC2 Elastic Compute
650+ instances with ~81K cores using Spot Instances for cost optimization
FSx & EBS High-Performance Storage
IOPS volumes dramatically improved build speed and asset I/O
CloudFront CDN Global Delivery
Content delivery across 12 data centers and 24 Availability Zones
Kinesis & EMR Real-Time Analytics
Processing 92 million events per minute for telemetry and scaling
AWS Shield & WAF Enhanced Security
Proactive monitoring and protection for millions of concurrent players
Lambda & API Gateway Serverless Backend
Automated backend operations with zero infrastructure management
Migration Timeline: 2012-2025
1
2012: Strategic Pivot
Shifted from packaged releases to Games as a Service (GaaS) model requiring scalable cloud backend
2
2016-2017: Fortnite Development
Battle Royale launch required global elastic infrastructure for matchmaking and session hosting
3
2017-2018: Massive Scaling
Millions of concurrent users tested capacity limits, prompting deeper AWS adoption
4
2018: Cloudgine Acquisition
Integrated cloud-based real-time compute into Unreal Engine and backend systems
5
2018-2019: All-In on AWS
Consolidated global servers, backend services, and analytics—supporting petabyte-scale data lake
6
2019-2020: Epic Online Services
Externalized Fortnite backend as platform for other developers
7
2020-2022: Optimization Era
Data lake expansion, containerization with Kubernetes, ML-based player optimization
8
2022-2024: Edge Expansion
AWS Graviton2 adoption and Local Zones deployment for regional latency reduction
9
2024-2025: Cloud-Native Maturity
Global production footprint with continuous autoscaling and edge optimization
AWS Migration Impact: Build Performance
This graph demonstrates how Epic's build times dramatically improved after migrating to AWS.
Transformative Results
3-4×
Faster Builds
Development velocity increased dramatically with elastic infrastructure
0
Downtime Updates
Zero downtime deployments for continuous player experience
12M+
Concurrent Players
Improved fault tolerance supporting massive scale
Epic's AWS transformation turned infrastructure into a competitive advantage, enabling focus on innovation, live scalability, and global reliability.
Staggering Scale: By The Numbers
350M
Global Players
Total players served by 2020
92M
Events Per Minute
Real-time telemetry ingestion
10×
Load Surge Capacity
Peak vs. non-peak scaling
Infrastructure Scale
  • 12 AWS data centers across 24 Availability Zones
  • 4,000+ EC2 instances for batch/ETL jobs
  • 22 production EMR clusters processing data
  • 8,000+ batch jobs daily summarizing analytics
Performance Gains
  • 75% reduction in build times
  • 54 billion events processed daily
  • 30× capacity spikes during live events
  • Zero downtime during updates
Product Evolution: On-Premise vs. Cloud
Gears of War Era
On-Premise Limitations
  • Xbox Live dependency
  • Player-hosted servers
  • High CapEx costs
  • Limited physical data centers
  • Fixed, non-scalable infrastructure
Fortnite Era
AWS Cloud Advantages
  • Global AWS infrastructure
  • Elastic auto-scaling
  • OpEx/pay-as-you-go model
  • Multi-region deployment
  • Massively scalable architecture
Technical Comparison: Then vs. Now
The shift from hardware-limited experiences to cloud-powered ecosystems enabled Epic to deliver global scalability, faster innovation, and sustained player engagement.
Epic Games Store Growth Explosion
295M
PC Users (2024)
Up 25 million year-over-year
898M
Cross-Platform Accounts
Including mobile and partners
37M
Peak Daily Active Users
Average: 31.5 million DAU
$1 B
Total Spending (2024)
15% increase vs. 2023
Monthly Active Users averaged 67.2 million with peaks reaching 74 million, demonstrating sustained engagement across the platform.
Revenue Performance: The Fortnite Effect
Epic Games demonstrated robust revenue generation primarily driven by Fortnite, with strategic investments in platform expansion.
After peaking at $5.7 billion in 2021, revenue experienced a multi-year adjustment before re-accelerating, with projections indicating a return to $5.8 billion in 2024.
The Financial Picture: Revenue, Profitability & Growth
Annual Revenue Growth
Operating Profit Margins
Global Team Expansion
Strategic Cost Centers
Cost Center I: Epic Games Store
Strategic Loss Leader
Epic invested heavily in building a competitive digital storefront to challenge Steam's dominance, offering developers better revenue splits (88/12 vs. Steam's 70/30) while absorbing significant operational costs.
Cost Center II: Platform Fee War
Nine-Figure Legal Battle
Epic engaged in high-profile legal disputes with Apple and Google over app store fees, investing substantial resources to challenge the 30% platform tax and advocate for open ecosystems.
Cost Center III: R&D Expansion
Ecosystem Innovation
Strategic investments in Unreal Engine development, Epic Online Services, and emerging technologies positioned Epic as a comprehensive platform provider beyond gaming.
Future Pillar I: The AI Strategy
Tools for Developers
  • AI Assistant for code generation
  • ML Deformer for realistic character movements
  • NNI Plugin for running AI models
Strategic Company Acquisitions
  • Cubic Motion & Hyprsense for MetaHuman creation tools
  • Loci's AI content tagging
Key Partnership
  • NVIDIA Avatar Cloud Engine partnership
Future Pillar II: The XR Strategy
Building Immersive Worlds
Epic's approach to Extended Reality (XR) is multi-faceted, focusing on foundational technology, robust content pipelines, and diverse industry applications.
Core Engine Features
  • OpenXR Standard: Epic helps lead this standard for broad device compatibility.
  • Nanite & Lumen: Unreal Engine 5 technologies for incredibly detailed graphics and smooth performance.
Controlling the Content Pipeline
  • Quixel: Acquired for its massive library of hyper-realistic 3D models.
  • Sketchfab: A marketplace for 3D, VR, and AR assets, providing vast content for creators.
Expanding Beyond Gaming
  • Partnerships with companies like Autodesk (architecture), LVMH (luxury retail), and 3EALITY (business solutions) extend Unreal Engine's reach.
By integrating these pillars, Epic is not just creating games, but building the foundational ecosystem for the next generation of immersive experiences across all sectors.
Future Aspirations
Epic's AI and XR strategies are two halves of one big plan, converging to shape the future of immersive experiences.
The Metaverse Endgame
Unreal Engine as the operating system for the future 3D internet.
AI Pillar
Creating believable, intelligent inhabitants for virtual worlds (MetaHumans).
XR Pillar
Building immersive places for these digital inhabitants to exist.
Disney Partnership
$1.5B validation for building a new entertainment universe.
This cohesive vision positions Epic at the forefront of digital transformation, blending advanced AI with groundbreaking XR technologies.
The Epic Transformation
From Infrastructure to Innovation
Epic Games' journey from on-premise constraints to cloud-native excellence demonstrates how strategic technology adoption can transform business capabilities.
Technical Excellence
3-4× faster builds, zero downtime, 12M+ concurrent players supported
Business Growth
$5.8B revenue, 350M players, 898M cross-platform accounts
Future Ready
AI integration and XR capabilities positioning Epic for next-generation gaming
By embracing AWS's elastic infrastructure, Epic transformed limitations into competitive advantages—proving that the right cloud strategy doesn't just support innovation, it enables it.
Thank You for Being an Awesome Audience

Our Journey's Architects

Meet the Team from case study's Inception to Presentation Ritu Vishwakarma Bhavika Phaste Abhishek Diwate Abhisek Das

Now It's Q&A Time!
Your questions power our universe! We're excited to dive deeper into Epic's journey and future with you. Don't be shy – let's explore together!
Epic Games