One of the biggest and best known online games right now is Fortnite. Created by Epic Games and released in 2017, it actually has three distinct versions: a survival game (Fortnite: Save the World, a sandbox game (Fortnite Creative) and a battle Royale game (Fortnite Battle Royale). While the game as a whole is exceptionally popular, it’s the Battle Royale mode that’s the most successful by far.
In this post, we’ll round up some interesting facts about the game, which has become a cultural phenomenon like no other. Have a read and you may learn a thing or two about the game and how big it’s become. You may be surprised to find out how much of a suc-cess the game actually is.
Number of Players
To say Fortnite is huge is an understatement. In may 2002, Epic Games announced that Fortnite had reached the milestone of 350 million registered users. The previous month, players around the world had collectively spent some 3.3 billion hours playing the game.
When Fortnite was released, it took just two weeks for the Battle Royale mode to attract 10 million players. Nowadays, it’s estimated that every day there can be as many as 5 million people playing the game. Like other online games, Fortnite regularly has special events. In December 2020, an event featuring the Marvel character Galactus had a total of 15.2 million concurrent players.
Income Generated
All three modes of Fortnite are completely free to play. You can download the game and play all modes as much as you like without having to spend any money at all. Money is made from micro-transactions: players have the option of purchasing V-Bucks, the game’s virtual currency, which can be spent on things such as items, upgrades and character skins.
In 2019, Fortnite was the world’s biggest free-to-play game in terms of revenue, generat-ing an astounding $1.8 billion from purchases of V-Bucks. This figure, believe it or not, is actually lower than the game’s revenue for the previous year, which was $2.4 billion.
Even though Fortnite’s revenue dropped 25% from 2018 to 2019, it’s still pulling in in-credibly impressive figures. A survey found that approximately 77% of players spend money on Fortnite’s V-Bucks, with the average player having spent around $85. Over half of money goes towards characters and skins.
Demographics
Nearly two-thirds of Fortnite players (62.7% to be exact) are between the ages of 18 and 24. Almost a quarter (22.5%) are aged 25 to 34.
The gender balance isn’t exactly 50/50, as the game attracts many more males than fe-males. Of all Fortnite players, 72.4% are males and 27.6% are females. At the Fortnite World Championship in 2019 (more on this below), none of the 100 competitors were fe-male.
The Fortnite World Cup
Though games like Fortnite are all about playing over the internet, the makers do put on real-world events that enable top players to actually meet up in person and play together. The Fortnite World Cup was established in 2018 and held again in 2019 (the 2020 event was effectively cancelled because of the COVID-19 pandemic).
Many of the figures to do with the 2019 Fortnite World Cup in particular are staggering. The event was held at the Arthur Ashe Stadium in Queens, New York, which has a ca-pacity of 23,771. The stadium was completely sold out for the two days (27 and 28 July) that the event took place.
The Solo competition had 100 players take part, with a prize fund of over $15 million be-ing shared among the players based on their rank. Everyone who qualified and earned a place as a Solo player was guaranteed to leave with $50,000. The player who came first, Bugha, was awarded a cool $3 million. He was just 16 when he won the life-changing prize.
The Duos competition worked in a similar way. It had 50 teams of two and each team was guaranteed to win at least $100,000. Across the two-day event, $30 million in prize money was given out. With so much money to be won, it should come as no surprise that 40 mil-lion people tried to qualify.
Social Media Presence
Fortnite is huge on social media, especially the streaming platform Twitch. Many of the most popular streamers on Twitch specialise in online games, such as Fortnite, League of Legends and Call of Duty: Warzone, to name a few. Around a third of the top 50 stream-ers produce Fortnite-related content.
The most followed streamer is Ninja, otherwise known as Tyler Blevins, a 29-year-old from Detroit. He’s amassed some 16.7 million followers, which is considerably more than the second-most-followed streamer, Tfue, who has 9.9 million followers. It’s been reported that in 2018, thanks to his streaming and other projects, Ninja earned $10 million.
