Fortnite is the most popular game in the world right now, and according to Bloomberg, it is pushing Epic Games towards an estimated $8.5 billion growth. With millions of players across multiple platforms, Fortnite boasts a healthy player base of pro gamers, casual fans, and rappers. Its free-to-play model, backed by purely optional microtransactions for cosmetics, has made gamers feel more at ease. That has led to the continued success of both Epic and founder Tim Sweeney.
Epic Games and Fortnite’s continued growth
Sweeney was one of the pioneers of game development in the early ’90s when multiplayer games truly took off. He had a breakthrough with Epic’s flagship title, Unreal, and the Unreal Engine was eventually used by a myriad of developers. Epic also released Gears of War, which became a premiere shooter game for Microsoft’s Xbox consoles. Fast forward to the present, and Sweeney and Epic Games have now found success in Fortnite after taking on battle royale powerhouse PUBG. Given that PUBG costs money while Fortnite‘s battle royale was free, it was no contest.
Also worth mentioning in Bloomberg’s report is that analysts are expecting Epic Games to command up to $14 billion in a potential sale. Even if Fortnite were to suffer a slowdown or losses, such as only earning half of this year’s expected $2 billion in revenue, it’s still possible for Epic to be worth $7.5 billion. That’s a lot of cash for the company.
The game’s availability for mobile also helped boost this growth. Daily revenue for the game on mobile devices currently rests around $2 million. It even hit a peak of $3 million last July 13. Within the first three months, it had already earned $100 million. Even on mobile, Fortnite has soundly beaten PUBG, which only earned $5.2 million within two months. Oh, and these numbers are just for iOS, by the way. It hasn’t even been released for Android devices yet!
Published: Jul 27, 2018 06:44 pm