Fortnite – a free video game – is a billion dollar money machine



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"Fortnite: Battle Royale," the free video game mode that stormed the world last fall, is a billion dollar business. That's according to a new SuperData report, which estimates that the game has generated more than $ 1 billion in revenue across all platforms.

For some perspective, this means that Fortnite has now earned more money than many of the most important blockbuster films of the past year, including "Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle", "Spider -Man: Homecoming "" Wonder Woman; " and more than double the gross world gains of the latest Star Wars movie, "Solo".

The report notes that the revenues come entirely from in-game purchases, which – in the case of Fortnite – do not provide any competitive advantage to the game. In the game, a $ 10 fully optional Battle Pass allows Players earn and collect in-game currency called V-bucks, which they can spend on costumes, props and dance moves for their playable character. But if you do not want to play the game enough to unlock these benefits, you can also buy more V-bucks with real dollars, at a rate of 1000 V-bucks for $ 9.99.

The most expensive character outfits – called "skins" in the gaming world – go for 2,000 V-bucks, or $ 20.

Fortnite was not the first game to bring the kind of royal battle to the masses. Games like DayZ, H1Z1 and PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds have popularized the "Hunger Games" formula, in which about 100 players are dropped on a shrinking playground and must look for weapons and supplies to be the last man standing.

At launch, the game was available for PC and PlayStation 4. Today, it can be played for free on PCs, game consoles and mobile iOS devices.

Fortnite: Battle Royale was first introduced as a free early access mode to the original title "Fortnite", a $ 60 zombie survival game that the creators of Epic Games had been developing for more than five years.

The "Battle Royale" mode has become much more popular than the original game – to such an extent that it is widely termed with the game's shorter title – thanks in large part to the attention of celebrities and from a large group of personalities. Video game streamers, like Tyler "Ninja" Blevins, who play the game on live streaming platforms like Twitch or YouTube Gaming for millions of fans to watch.

Fortnite, in turn, helped Blevins, a former professional athlete of esports, become a full-fledged celebrity, with multi-million dollar sponsorship, official merchandise and an invitation to the 2018 ESPY Awards.

Since Fortnite has soared the genre of royal battle to global popularity, several other video game series have sought to emulate their success, and they are right to do so. SuperData predicts that games with a Royal Battle Mode will earn 12% of all gaming revenue in 2018. More specifically, the next episode of "Call of Duty: Black Ops" will feature the franchise's first shot on the royal battle.

The data shows that Fortnite saw its largest peak of players at the beginning of this year, and at the time, many speculated that the free game was simply experiencing a fleeting moment which would dissipate quickly.

Today, ten months after its launch in 2017, Fortnite is still the most-watched and most-watched game on Twitch, an impressive benchmark that has placed the game among the most popular video games of all. time, and reports that Fortnite will continue to be very profitable for a very long time.

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