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Tim Sweeney made Fortnite a phenomenon by doing something that seems crazy: he abandoned it.
This strategy has made him a billionaire.
In an industry plagued by monster successes, like Candy Crush and Pokemon Go, Fortnite's popularity is not surprising. His income is. Between the release of the current version in September and the end of May, Fortnite reported more than $ 1.2 billion, according to SuperData Research. In early June, 125 million people played
which resulted in an increase in Epic Games revenues, created by Sweeney Company in the basement of his parents 27 years ago. Fortnite alone is on track to generate $ 2 billion this year, which makes the Cary player, based in North Carolina worth $ 5 billion to $ 8 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires index. Sweeney, 47, is the majority shareholder
Fortnite is a global phenomenon, obsessively played by children, rappers, professional athletes and mature accountants. This is a Royal Battle where players face each other in a fight for weapons, resources and survival on a storm-ravaged island.
Instead of bombarding upwards of $ 40 for the game, players buy online V-bucks, a virtual currency that they can trade during the game for outfits, skins called, dances festive or special missions that can cost up to $ 20 each. They have done something really unique, which gives an exclusive perception, "said Michael Pachter, an badyst at Wedbush Securities. Many accessories from the Fortnite store are available on a limited basis, prompting players to buy before the coveted items disappear from virtual shelves. "If you see another player in a leopard skin and go to the store and see that he's no longer available, you think:" Shoot, I have to go next time. & # 39; 39; "
All this trade is reflected by badysts, the highest per-user revenue rates in the industry and operating margins north of 50%.
"The valuation of Epic has exploded alongside the success of Fortnite," says Timothy O. Shea, Games Manager at Jefferies Financial. According to the trading multiples of its Electronic Arts and Activision Blizzard peers, Epic could be worth up to $ 14 billion, although potential buyers would ask for a rebate because of questions about Fortnite's ability to support revenue growth, added O Shea. . Even though sales were expected to fall to $ 1 billion a year – half of its current estimate – the company could still reasonably command $ 7.5 billion in a sale, Pachter said.
This is a boon to Sweeney and the Chinese Internet giant Tencent Holdings 40% of Epic in 2012 at a valuation of $ 825 million. We still do not know what impact Fortnite had on Tencent's balance sheet. Three badysts who cover the Shenzen-based firm said they had not yet considered the game in their ratings of the sum of the coins.
While most games reached their peak popularity soon after launch, Fortnite still attracted millions of new users. six months later, thanks to a largely seductive aesthetic that is more harmful than graphic violence. Fans of celebrities such as rapper Drake and Josh Hart of the Los Angeles Lakers have pushed it further into mainstream consciousness. French football star Antoine Griezmann celebrated a goal in the World Cup final by performing the "Take-the-L" dance of the game.
Like a social game, easy to play and difficult to master, it has has been a success with school-aged children, raising concerns of teachers and parents reporting obsessive play during the course.
Fortnite is not a blue bolt for Epic. The biggest success of the developer was Gears of War, a successful franchise for Microsoft's Xbox 360. Epic also owns Unreal Engine, one of two operating systems widely used by developers to build games. At first, Epic asked the customers to use the software. Sales took off when Sweeney made the product free and instead started collecting a royalty on game sales made using the software, which included hits such as Mbad Effect and Batman: Arkham.
Fortnite also started as a fee product. Launched in July 2017 in the form of a $ 40 version where players were building forts to defend against hordes of zombies, the game really took off after Epic had released it and added the style of multi-combat game
. At the E3 last year, the big industry show, Epic showed some journalists the hidden game in a meeting room. At this year's conference, the Epic booth was entirely devoted to Fortnite, with a replica of the bus in which players go to the beginning of the game and opportunities for fans to play in dance and hang gliding videos. That week, Epic presented its first Celebrity Pro-Am Fortnite with guests such as comedian Joel McHale and professional Ninja (real name Tyler Blevins) competing in a football stadium. In May, Epic announced that it would provide $ 100 million to fund prize pools for Fortnite competitions.
At the Epic office, located in a suburb of Raleigh, North Carolina, at the corner of a shopping mall, Hot Pockets employees. There is a games room, a two-story slide, and giant sculptures of some game characters.
Raised in the suburbs of Potomac, Maryland, Sweeney quickly demonstrated talent for both gaming and business. At age 11, he learns to program using the Apple computer's family and makes a hobby of dissecting electronics. At the age of 15, he quit his job at a hardware store after noticing that everyone was getting the same hourly pay regardless of the level of difficulty. Instead, he borrowed his father's tractor and started trimming the neighbors' lawns, cutting off professional landscapers, according to an interview in 2011 with the Kotaku video game site. Sweeney began designing his own games at the age of 21, packing them on floppy disks and mailing them out. "Tim Sweeney is a legendary character," said Joost van Dreunen, CEO of SuperData Research Holdings. intelligence on the game industry. "He is a hard worker, with a clear vision of what he wants to do."
Despite millions of captivating players, Sweeney is not really a player. He is a conservation enthusiast and one of the largest private landlords in North Carolina. After the financial crisis, he bought thousands of acres, mainly in the mountains, with the aim of creating nature reserves.
Sweeney often wanders in the epic office, leaving large cups of soda in his wake. He advocates a concoction of 60% water and 40% Coca-Cola in the company's fountains.
In a 10-year-old online video, Sweeney goes around his big house. The perpetual single says that he had never eaten in the elegant dining room and preferred to take away to Burger King. He already owned several sports cars, including a Lamborghini, but he sold most of them. He drives a Corvette 2019.
"It turns out that a fast car is an excellent hobby when one is workaholic because even when one does not have free time, we can always go to work, "he said. 19659002] – – –
With the help of Krista Gmelich.
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