It’s been a year since Fortnite was launched. The battle royale genre was just blooming back then with the advent of PUBG. However, Fortnite caught up and how!
Initially launched on 24 July, 2017 as a survival game, where a group of players were to go up against AI controlled opponents and build structures in order to survive, the game entered the free to play battle royale mode in September and hasn’t looked back since.
Fortnite even topped the charts on live streams on Twitch, sometimes racing ahead of Riot Games’ League of Legends, which is a regular topper on the platform.
In contrast to PUBG, the game sports a rather, colourful and arcade-style experience, with whacky elements popping up every week. The players must fight each other off to be the last man standing on a devastated island, in order to be the winner.
The game was launched initially with a price tag of $40 but came out in the free to play zone with the introduction of the battle royale mode. With high rising player base, the title earned revenues through in-game purchases which include skins, weapon visual upgrades, cosmetics and more, the same strategy used by other popular games like League of Legends and Dota 2.
Now that the game is celebrating, technically, its first birthday, it has brought in some birthday-themed elements and challenges in the game. According to reports, 10 birthday cakes are hidden in the map and players must find them to unlock rewards and additional challenges. Apart from finding the easter eggs in the game, the players can complete a set of challenges to earn a cake-like looking backpack as an added cosmetic to their character for future matches.
It is however not clear how long the quests will be available in the game.
According to a report by gaming research firm SuperData, the company has already churned $1.2 billion till May, this year. The game has been played by 125 million players and the revenue is likely to grow to $2 billion in 2018, by which Epic Games would be valued at something between $5 billion to $8 billion.
The company has also announced a tournament which will be sometime during 2018 which will reportedly sport a titanic prize pool of $100 million, which has never been seen in any esports tournament so far.
While Tencent has its share in Epic Games, according to Bloomberg, Fortnite has most likely made Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney a billionaire, who is also the company’s controlling shareholder.
The game has become somewhat of a phenomenon with news around its revenue and playerbase making rounds over publications all around. The switch from premium to freemium model and the integration of the battle royale mode further boosted the game’s popularity.
For now, it seems like Fortnite is on the right track, as the developers are bringing out new content every week, keeping the game fresh and not-so-monotonous. The tournament details are yet to be revealed, but as the game completes a year, it is commendable for them on holding the playerbase it has which in turn will likely bring in more revenues for the makers of the game at a steady pace if not in a spike.