Fortnite’s rapid ascent to stardom was also a watershed moment for Epic Games.
In a few short years, Fortnite had become one of the most-played titles in video game history and had cemented itself as a legendary cultural icon.īut the gaming community wasn’t the only beneficiary of the game’s enormous success. By August 2018, Fortnite had accrued more than 125 million monthly active users, and by mid-2020, the game hosted almost 350 million accounts. The game’s unique storyline and novel gameplay experience, which pits 100 players against each other in a Hunger Games-style brawl, also earned it rave reviews from casual players and hardcore gamers alike. Though this feat would have been impressive enough on its own, it was merely a harbinger of things to come.Īt the one-year mark, Fortnite boasted a player base over ten times this number. Within a fortnight of its public release, the battle royale game had attracted over 10 million player signups, many of them “digitally native” kids and adolescents. When Fortnite launched in July 2017, it was an instant success.
What should we make of Epic Games’ epic run over the last few years, and how much more can the company grow? Fortnite’s Spectacular Success An Immediate Hit With the company potentially preparing for a public offering within the next few years, perhaps it’s worth taking a deeper look at how the game studio got here, along with where the company might be headed going forward. Through its Unreal Engine, design technology and expansive gaming library, Epic Games has positioned itself as the largest private company in the burgeoning metaverse industry and is poised to be a true industry leader in not only the gaming industry, but in the tech world at large. But the most compelling aspect of the company lies beyond “just” the gaming world. Epic Games also captured the cultural zeitgeist when the studio released Fortnite, a battle royale game that took the world by storm and changed the trajectory of Epic Games in a permanent and profound way. The most formidable player in the private market is Epic Games, the developer of the much-acclaimed Unreal Engine, and the company behind popular games like Gears of War and Infinity Blade. Leading companies, in particular, face unique threats from challengers and disrupters, who on the flip side see tailwinds in an industry that transforms at a dizzying pace. After all, what is in vogue today may be thoroughly outdated by tomorrow, pressuring game development companies to either evolve or die. Game studios are beholden to the same set of challenges. For this reason, not all games that aspire to be cultural sensations can clinch that coveted status. However, the burgeoning and fast-moving video game industry is defined by rapidly-changing consumer tastes and gameplay innovations that progress at seemingly breakneck speeds.
In order to service this voracious appetite for digital leisure, video game giants like Electronic Arts and Activision Blizzard churn out game after game, eager for each new release to hit it big as a critical and commercial success. Larger than both the film ($100 billion) and sports ($75 billion) industries combined, the video game industry is worth an eye-popping $180 billion, and counts among its ranks nearly half the U.S. Once disparaged as a cultural oddity, video games have become a mainstay of today’s omnipresent and sprawling digital ecosystem.
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