Fortnite has just become the most profitable game in history
That's a hell of a lot for a free-to-play game
It certainly seemed from the outside that 2018 was the year of Fortnite.
The free to play survival game, which only came to mobile devices for the first time in April, mushroomed in influence to the point where parents were hiring Fortnite tutors for their kids and people were searching for the game on Pornhub.
With that in mind, it should come as no surprise that it has become hugely profitable – in fact, more profitable than any other game in history.
The title is thought to have generated around $2.4bn (£1.86bn) in 2018 alone, according to estimates from gaming data company SuperData.
As Deadline reports, quoting SuperData, the Epic Games release is thought to have benefitted from in-game purchases, and specifically making battle passes “a core part of its monetization strategy”.
The report, which put Fortnite around $900m clear of its nearest challenger, found that free-to-play games accounted for 80% of the $87.7bn digital game revenue generated in 2018.
Despite being free to play, physical copies of the game were reportedly selling for £300 at certain points in the last 12 months as fans wanted to get their hands on a rare, discontinued product.
The rise of Fortnite was helped by its popularity among footballers, with a number of Premier League stars streaming their gameplay and some even incorporating it into their celebrations.
As with any rising trend, though, the true test of its popularity was the extent to which porn sites experiences a rise in traffic whenever the game went down. Consider that box well and truly ticked.
(Images: Fortnite)
