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Online Game 'Fortnite' Is Growing At An Unbelievable Rate

Online Game 'Fortnite' Is Growing At An Unbelievable Rate

The number of people playing online game 'Fortnite' is absolutely staggering - and it's only getting larger

Mischa Pearlmen

Mischa Pearlmen

Less than a year after it was released in July 2017, online open world coop survival game Fortnite has taken the video gaming world by storm.

Earlier today, the game's publisher Epic Games, announced that more than 125 million have played the game. That, as Business Insider points out, means there are more Fortnite players than there are PlayStation 4 and Nintendo Switch owners combined.

Or, to put it another way, there are as many people in the entire country of Mexico as there are playing that game. That's a lot of people.

The number of people playing exploded in September 2017 after the Battle Royale mode was added as a free addition to the game.

Modeled on the popular PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds, celebrities such as Drake have been playing Fortnite and pro-gamer Ninja allegedly makes $500,000 every month playing the game. We're in the wrong profession, clearly.

Epic Games are also offering up to $100 million to turn the game into an eSport. Given that the game is free, people are speculating just how the company are making money from it, but if a single player can earn that much from playing it - from having his subscribers watch him play online, which sounds somewhat tedious - then you can be sure that Epic have found a way to monetise it too.

And indeed - players of Fortnite have the option to pay for the game's Battle Pass - a system of challenges that unlock a number of in-game items. That costs 950 V-bucks, the game's virtual currency, which is equivalent to about $9.50 in the real world.

PA

Even if 10 percent of the game's players fork out for a Battle Pass, that's a lot of money right there. Not that Epic Games have said anything about the revenue they've received from the game.

Analytics firm Superdata have, however, and they estimate that Epic is raking in around $300 million every month across Xbox One, PlayStation 4, iPhone/iPad, PC and Mac. Which is absolutely fucking insane.

Having just added Nintnedo Switch support on Tuesday morning - and with Android support coming in the summer - it looks like that figure is only going to grow. Consider our jaws dropped.

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Topics: GAMING, tech