Fortnite made $2.18 Billion in 2018; here’s why it’s a big deal for us video-game players worldwide.
The Fortnite phenomenon had hit new heights as soon as celebrities like “Drake” started playing it on a regular basis. Epic had launched it’s free-to-play, “Battle-Royale” edition of the game mid-2017. Ever since then, millions of players of all ages have been logging on to Epic servers from various platforms. Epic’s major share of revenue has been from in-game purchases using V-Bucks and the season Battle-Pass.
The Battle Pass gives you access to bonus challenges and unlocks other gifts such as costumes, emotes and other cosmetics. Fortnite users can buy various items from the item store using the in-game currency called “V-Bucks”.
None of these item store purchases give any sort of competitive advantage during the game. This was a major factor for the growth of Fortnite.
Fortnite Completes its First Calendar Year
Since Fortnite was launched in mid-2017, the game completed its first official calendar year in 2018. The game-makers took on major game titles like Call of Duty – Black Ops 4, God of War, FIFA 19, Far Cry 5, PUBG and many more.
Business Insider reports that Fortnite made the highest revenue in the gaming industry, beating all of its competition by a huge margin. All of the other mentioned game titles were priced at 40$ – 80$ depending on the edition of each game. Fortnite offered it’s Battle Royale update free to all users throughout 2018 and managed to rake in way more money than any of the other games.
Fortnite’s Most Successful Streamer “Ninja” Explains to Jimmy Fallon Why Fortnite is Such a Success
Check Out Ninja’s Fortnite Settings Here
Back in the day, kids including “Ninja” had to do chores to earn themselves a video game because of how expensive it was. But now, Fortnite is free and cross-platform, allowing anyone with any device to get into the game.
Keeping the game free and adding Cross-Platform features to the game is what everyone wants. Epic’s new strategy shows that, if your game is good and attracts millions of users every day, people are bound to spend money on the game. By just selling “state of the art” costumes and emotes, Epic has generated revenue that has literally killed its competition.
In 2018 alone, Fortnite made 2.18$ Billion and has forced Sony to enable the “Cross-Platform” feature on its network. Apart from this, PlayStation users required PS-Plus to be enabled in their account for online game-play.
Fortnite does not require “PS-Plus”, it can be downloaded and played on any PlayStation 4 console straight out of the box.
What Does This Mean for Future Gaming Titles?
Epic’s influence on the gaming industry has definitely forced every game developer to re-think their business strategy. Introducing a free-to-play product is what did the trick last year.
In late 2018, Epic had offered its “Cross-Platform developer tools” free to other game developers. Game developers were struggling with implementing Cross-Platform features to their game and these tools help to solve a lot of cross-platform game-play issues, including hosting multiple platform chat lobbies.
Epic has played it smart here by inviting all future coders to use their tools and stay on their coding platform. Being the only “multi-platform” game on the market, other game developers cannot ignore the technology used in getting the game playable on multiple devices at the same time.
Initially, Fortnite had only “Battle-Royale” as it’s free to play update. But now, it’s “Creative-Mode” is also “free-to-play” and offers custom party lobbies of up to 16 players. Users have created massive maps for solo practice drills and some streamers have even offered cash prizes for ‘Death-runs’ and other challenges.
Check out Fortnite’s Creative Launch here:
Check Out Cizzor’s Fortnite Settings Here
The future is Free-to-play! 2019 might be the break-out year for Free-to-play game titles. Watch out!