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Hey guess what, Fortnite Battle Royale is a free-to-play battle royale online game developed and published by Epic Games. It is a companion game to Fortnite: Save the World, a cooperative survival game with construction elements. It was initially released in early access on September 26, 2017, for Microsoft Windows, macOS, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One, followed by ports for iOS, Android, and the Nintendo Switch in 2018.

Fortnite Battle Royale Fortnite Battle Royale.png Developer(s) Epic Games Publisher(s) Epic Games[a] Director(s) Donald Mustard[1] Series Fortnite Engine Unreal Engine 4 Platform(s) Microsoft Windows macOS PlayStation 4 Xbox One iOS Nintendo Switch Android Release September 26, 2017 Windows, macOS, PlayStation 4, Xbox One September 26, 2017 iOS April 2, 2018 Nintendo Switch June 12, 2018 Android August 9, 2018 Genre(s) Battle royale Mode(s) Multiplayer The concept of the game is similar to previous games of the genre: 100 players skydive onto an island and scavenge for gear to defend themselves from other players. Players can fight alone (Solo), with one additional player (Duos), or with a group of up to three others (Squads). As the match progresses, the playable area within the island gradually constricts, giving the players less and less room to work with. The last player or team alive wins the match. The main distinction from others in the genre is the game's construction elements, which can give advantages based on skill level and utilization. Battle Royale uses a seasonal approach with battle passes to introduce new character customization content in the game, as well as limited time events, some of which correspond with changes to the game map. Since its initial release, several other game modes have been introduced, including "Playground", which somewhat serves as a training mode.

The idea for Battle Royale arose following the release of PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds, a similar battle royale game that was highly successful, but was noted for its technical flaws. Originally released as part of the early access version of Save the World, Epic later transitioned the game to a free-to-play model funded by microtransactions. Following its rise in popularity, Epic split the development team, with one focusing on Battle Royale and the other on Save the World.

Battle Royale received positive reviews from critics, who praised its learning curve, gameplay, art style, and progression system, but noted its similarity to previous games in the genre. The game quickly rose in popularity following its release, eventually surpassing Battlegrounds in overall player count and revenue. By January 2019, the game had been played by over 200 million people and had generated over 2 billion dollars worldwide. The game has gone on to become a cultural phenomenon, with promotion through social media and several celebrities, including Ninja, Marshmello, and Drake, contributing to the game's popularity, achieving record high viewerships on streaming websites in the process.

Contents Gameplay

The player can build structures as defense or buildings The main gameplay for Fortnite Battle Royale follows the battle royale genre's standard format. The game normally is played either with each player on their own, or in a squad of two to four players, with up to 100 players participating each round. The round starts with players, weaponless, skydiving from floating buses ("Battle Bus") then deploying a glider onto a region of land. The island's fixed layout includes several landmarks and locations (named in an alliterative fashion, such as "Loot Lake", "Tilted Towers", and "Retail Row") that are mostly ghost towns, while a random distribution of weapons, shields, and other combat support features can be found by searching buildings and other sites. The goal is to be the last player or team alive by eliminating or avoiding other players. Over time, the game's safe zone (representing the eye of a storm), decreases in size, and players caught outside the zone will take damage. This directs the surviving players into tighter spaces, forcing player encounters. Supply drops will spawn in random locations during a match, providing random weapons and items. Like in the original Fortnite game, Fortnite Battle Royale is primarily played in a third-person perspective.

Fortnite Battle Royale's primary distinction from other battle royale games is the building system, which originated from the original Fortnite survival game. Nearly all objects in the environment can be destroyed and harvested for materials (wood, stone, and metal), which can then be used to build fortifications of limited durabilities, such as walls, ramps, floors, and roofs, which can be used to help traverse the map, protect the player from gunfire, or slow down progression of other players. Weaker pieces can be destroyed in a few hits, but can be built quickly, while stronger pieces can withstand more punishment, but take longer to build.

The game also revolves around players eliminating their opponents to be the last one standing The game is free-to-play, supported by microtransactions that allow players to buy "Vinderbucks", "V-Bucks" for short, the game's internal currency. V-Bucks are also shared with the main Fortnite: Save the World game, which offers players the opportunity to earn V-Bucks by completing missions or daily quests.[2] V-Bucks can then be used to buy cosmetic improvements to the player (character, pickaxe and glider skins, back-wear, and emotes). The game is run as seasons, lasting about 10 weeks each. Each season introduces an exclusive set of cosmetic items that can be obtained. These are offered through a dual-track battle pass, which features a number of tiers that players climb through by earning 'battle stars' through completing in-game objectives, while acquiring cosmetic rewards or other items in the process. Each player has access to the "free" track of the Battle Pass, which offers fewer cosmetics that can be earned by clearing multiple tiers, while players can also purchase the Pass' "premium" track with V-Bucks,[3] which offers more challenges and grants prizes for every tier the player advances. Players can use V-Bucks to purchase tiers as well once they have bought the Battle Pass.[4]

Since release, Epic Games has added more features, such as new weapon and items and makeshift vehicles such as shopping carts and golf carts. Epic is also able to deploy hot-fixes to the game to adjust aspects like weapon attributes and distribution, pushing these out in minutes if necessary should they or players discover critical issues or glitches.[5][6] With the release of Season 7 and Fortnite Creative mode, an area of the map called The Block will feature a rotating selection of user-made creations developed in 'Creative' mode and approved by Epic.[7]

Limited time and competitive modes Epic has the ability to include limited time modes (LTM) within the game, which provides Epic with experimental capabilities and gain feedback from players to improve upon.[8] One of its earliest additions was a 50-v-50 mode, placing players randomly on one of two teams and dropping them on opposite sides of the map, giving the two teams time to gather resources, create fortifications, and hunt the other team before the storm moved in.[9] Shortly after the launch of the film Avengers: Infinity War, Epic ran a Marvel-sponsored event that featured the Infinity Gauntlet that randomly spawned on the map; any player that equipped it became Thanos with added abilities.[10] A sandbox Playground LTM was introduced in June 2018, which allows up to four players to explore and build anything anywhere on the battle map, while being able to fight each other and respawn upon defeat until the storm covered the map after an hour and eliminated them all; Epic later made this a permanent mode in the game.[11]

Epic has stated that they intend to add ranked competitive play in the future.[12] A preliminary competitive mode, Solo Showdown, ran for a limited time starting in May 2018, ranking players by their final placement in matches and rewarding the top-placing competitors with V-Bucks.[13]

Seasonal changes Fortnite Battle Royale has created a larger loose narrative that is exhibited through changes in the game map, which generally correlated to the start and end of the in-game season. For example, in the lead up to the fourth season which started in May 2018, players saw a number of shooting stars cross the skies, followed by a giant comet that neared the ground; upon the start of season four, the comet had hit one of the locations on the map, leaving a giant crater, among other changes. This tied into several new cosmetic skins related to superheroes and super-villains that were available that month.[14] Epic has the ability to create custom events that occur across all game servers simultaneously as well; the first example of such was a countdown leading to a giant rocket's launch in June 2018 which, in the aftermath, left cracks in the skies that have grown since that event.[15] This has also included non-game related events: EDM artist Marshmello held a virtual concert on February 2, 2019 across all game servers,[16] estimated to have had over 10 million players watching it live.[17]

The game initially launched without any seasonable schedule, but starting with the release of Season 2 in December 2017, Epic has provided new content, which includes new cosmetics, new gameplay elements, and changes to the game's map, on a roughly 10-week basis. This also introduced the use of the battle pass for players to obtain some of this new content by completing challenges and gaining experience.

Season	Period	Description Season 1	September 2017 – December 2017	Retroactively considered the first season upon the start of second. Season 2	December 2017 – February 2018	Introduction of the battle pass. Medieval themed. Season 3	February 2018 – April 2018	Space-themed. Battle Pass increased from 70 tiers to 100. Season 4	May 2018 – July 2018	Superhero Movie-themed season. Leading up to the start of Season 4, players had observed shooting stars crossing the game's map during Season 3, which later became small meteorites that hit the ground and caused some damage. Across all games a large meteor also started to appear, on track to hit the game map to coincide with the start of Season 4, completely destroying one of the major landmarks.[18][19] Season 5	July 2018 – September 2018	Time travel-themed season. Prior to this season, Epic established a one-time event across all games on June 30, 2018 that fired a rocket from a villainous lair which created interdimensional rifts on the map.[20] The rifts grew over the next few days, with some in-game objects disappearing and new objects from other time periods appearing.[21] As part of its marketing, Epic planted a real-world version of the "Durrr-Burger" restaurant sign in the California desert, with clues pointing to locations of real-world version of the game's loot llamas located around the world.[22] The season started with changes of the map due to these rifts, while the rifts remained as a gameplay element within the season, teleporting the player to a high elevation and to re-land elsewhere in the map.[23] Season 6	September 2018 – December 2018[24]	Darkness and corruption themed. Near the end of the fifth season, another one-time event occurred in which the rifts created by the rocket launch closed up, leaving a large purple cube with glyphs on its surface in the game world, which players nicknamed "Kevin". Kevin moved on its own volition throughout the season, creating anomalies in its wake, including levitating itself and the large island in Loot Lake across the map, and allowing transdimensional "Cube Monsters" to appear across the map and attack players. Ultimately, Kevin overloaded and exploded, temporarily teleporting all players into a white, bottomless void, where a Rift-shaped butterfly briefly appeared. On return to the map, Loot Lake had returned to normal, but with many smaller islands made up of pieces of Kevin. [25][26][27][28][29][30].[31] Season 7	December 2018 – February 2019	Winter themed. As the sixth season concluded, a snow cloud appeared over one corner of the map, followed by a large iceberg at the onset of Season 7 that collided with the island and covered a third of the map in snow with other new features, including a large castle that had been buried deep in the snow. Initially the map's features celebrated the Festuvis holiday. Later, a large ice sphere appeared above the castle, warning of an upcoming winter storm. Soon, the Ice King, who had been trapped in the castle, emerged to cast a spell that unleashed a winter storm across the whole map, and summoned Ice Fiends (similar to the Cube Monsters) to attack players.[32] Season 8	March 2019 - current	Adventure/pirate/tropical themed. In the last days of the seventh season, the island was rocked by earthquakes that created cracks on the ground,[33] eventually heralding the appearance of a large volcano on the northeast corner of the map that erupted. The eruption melted most of the snow from the island, and eradicated the nearby features and replaced them with a lagoon and an Aztec-like temple complex. The eruption also created dangerous lava flows surrounding the volcano.[34] Pirates, ninjas and more unreal adventurers, (including a "prisoner" of the Ice King who broke free and developed an affinity for fire) enter the fold, hunting for treasure and victory.[35] Development

See also: Fortnite: Save the World § Development Fortnite had first been revealed by Epic Games in 2011, considered to be a combination of Minecraft and Left 4 Dead as four players would work together to scavenge resources to built fortifications, traps, weapons, and other objects to survive monster attacks.[36][37] The game ended up with a protracted development period, in part due to both external pressures, with the industry transitioning to a games as a service model, and internal shifts of focus within Epic (including focusing attention on their first free-to-play title Paragon) to meet the external challenges. During this period, Epic made a deal with Tencent, giving them about 40% of the company in exchange for their support for the games as a service approach as well as ready access to the Chinese video game market.[38] Fortnite was confirmed to have a planned 2018 release in June 2017, with a paid early access period starting a month later; the game is planned otherwise as a free-to-play title supported by microtransactions. With release in early access, the game featured its primary gameplay mode, "Save the World", where players in teams up to four would work cooperatively to survive and complete objectives on randomly generated maps.[39][40]

During the latter part of Fortnite's development, PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds was released in March 2017 on personal computers in early access, and quickly became a popular and successful game, becoming the defining example of the battle royale genre. According to Mustard, the Epic team "loved Battle Royale games like [Battlegrounds]", and explored how they could make a similar mode within Fortnite's engine. They kept this mode in a separate development team from the main player versus environment modes for experimentation and as to not throw off the balance in the main game.[41] The Battle Royale mode development was led by Eric Williamson with Zack Estep as production lead. Their goal was to develop the Battle Royale mode quickly from the core "Save the World" mode, putting off any complex features that weren't already in place as to launch the new mode as soon as possible; while they explored such potential ideas, they held off inclusion until after the main mode was launched.[8] The development of the Battle Royale mode took about two months starting in July 2017 after the "Save the World" mode had shipped, and was aided by the Unreal Tournament team.[5][42] Key differences for Battle Royale that differed from "Save the World" included a more limited progression for weapons, a small subset of traps, and a smoother, more natural terrain for the maps.[8] They also wanted to aim for games not taking longer than 25 minutes, which led to some decisions of which elements from "Save the World" would not carry over.[8] They had including Fortnite's building mechanic for fortifications, not sure how players would use that since the safe zone would continue shrinking, but found quickly that the mechanic helped to distinguish the game from Battlegrounds and was used by expert players frequently to win matches, and had since implemented more features to help players with rapidly constructing temporary bases.[8]

Fortnite Battle Royale at the 2018 Game Developers Conference In those two months of development, Epic's plan was to include Battle Royale within the paid Fortnite game, and originally announced this approach publicly in early September 2017. Only two weeks before it was released did Epic decide to make it a separate free-to-play title, fearing that having it as part of the paid package would slow down the growth of the title.[42] Epic announced this change formally about a week after first announcing Battle Royale, allowing those that had purchased early access to Fortnite in anticipation of this mode to request refunds.[43] This release, which beat out Battlegrounds to consoles, caused some concern with Battlegrounds developer Bluehole, as they had been working closely with Epic for Unreal engine support in Battlegrounds, and were worried that Fortnite might be able to include planned features to their Battle Royale mode before they could release those in Battlegrounds.[44][45][46]

With the popularity of Fortnite Battle Royale by the start of 2018, Epic split off a separate development team to focus on improvements for this mode.[47] Epic said that their attention to Fortnite was causing some of their other games to see lower player populations, leading them to reduce development efforts on these games, particularly Paragon.[48] By the end of January 2018, Epic announced it was shutting down Paragon by April of that year, providing refunds to all players.[49] Similarly, Epic announced it had halted development of the planned free-to-play Unreal Tournament game, its team transitioned to Fortnite, though the game will remain available, playable, and open to end-user modifications.[50] Players on a Fortnite-dedicated Reddit forum had expressed concerns that a similar fate could befall the Save the World mode of Fortnite, as externally, the Save the World mode has not received the same attention in providing updates and improvements compared to the Battle Royale mode since that mode's release.[51]

Localization Tencent, who is a partial owner of Epic Games, will bring Fortnite Battle Royale to China; the company is already involved in bringing and supporting Battlegrounds in China as well. Tencent plans to spend up to US$15 million to help promote the game in China, set up eSports tournaments, and fight against copyright infringement and clones of Fortnite that have appeared in the country.[52] Epic also worked with Neowiz Games to bring a version of Fortnite to South Korea, launched in November 2018.[53][54]

Ports A release of Fortnite for the Nintendo Switch video game console had been rumored in the week prior to the Electronic Entertainment Expo 2018 in June 2018. During the Nintendo Direct presentation, Nintendo and Epic Games announced the release of Fortnite Battle Royale for the Nintendo Switch, supporting cross-platform play with any other platform except the PlayStation 4; such users are able to carry over their inventory, Battle Pass status, and in-game currency between these platforms through their Epic user account. The game was released on June 12, 2018, the same day as the announcement. It is the first game to support direct voice chat through the Switch console through software provided by Vivox.[55] With the success of the Switch version of Fortnite, Vivox had made its voice chat software development kit available for other Switch games.[56]

In March 2018, Epic announced it was making Fortnite Battle Royale for Android and iOS mobile devices.[57] The iOS version was released first, and was expected to be followed by the Android version by mid-2018.[58] The beta version for iOS devices launched on March 15, 2018,[59] and opened to all players on April 2, 2018.[60] Epic Games stated that it was not possible to release the Android version with the iOS version simultaneously, and declined to provide a concrete release date for it, because the developers wanted to spend a few months making sure that the game will be compatible with as many Android devices as possible, a task that is not easily accomplished due to the high variety of Android hardware.[61]

The Android beta version of Fortnite was released on August 9, 2018 with a time-exclusivity for selected Samsung mobile devices until August 12, 2018.[62][63] On August 13, 2018, Epic began sending invites for the Android version to registered users for non-Samsung devices,[64] and by October 11, 2018, the Android client was made available to all without an invite.[65]

The Android version is not distributed on Google Play Store: users must sideload an installer app from an Android application package (APK) file downloaded from the Epic Games' website (although on Samsung devices, the app is also available via the internal Samsung Galaxy Apps service).[66][67] Epic Games stated that it wanted to have a direct connection to the players of the game, and did not want its microtransactions to be subject to Google Play Store's 30% revenue sharing requirement (considering them disproportionate to the types of services the store provides).[68] Security experts expressed concern over this decision, since this requires users to modify security settings in default Android distributions to allow third-party sites to install Android application packages (APK). This setting can make users, particularly younger players, prone to potential malware, including clones of Fortnite that install malicious programming.[69] About a month after the Android release, there were at least 32 clones of the Fortnite installer on the Google Store, with half found to include malware.[70] Epic's installer for Android does include a warning message following the install that users should re-enable security controls and warns users of only downloading content from trusted sources.[71] The initial installer was found by Google to have a potential vector that would allow for malware to be installed, though this was patched within 48 hours of discovery and Epic did not believe anyone used the vector.[72]

The iOS version of Fortnite Battle Royale alone brought in an estimated US$1 million in microtransaction revenue within the first three days of in-app purchases being available, according to analysis firm Sensor Tower. Glixel considered these numbers impressive, compared to the early success rate of other popular mobile games, such as Pokémon Go and Clash Royale which earned US$4.9 million and US$4.6 million in their first four days, respectively.[73] Sensor Tower further estimated that after one month, the mobile title had earned more than US$25 million in revenue, surpassing revenues from any other mobile games and other several top-grossing apps during the same period.[74][75]

Cross-platform play For the first five seasons, all ports of Fortnite Battle Royale support cross-platform play with other versions, but with limited interaction in regards to the PlayStation 4. That is, players on personal computer and mobile versions can cross-play with Xbox One and Nintendo Switch users, or alternatively they can cross-play with PlayStation 4 users.[57][76] While Epic Games has expressed interest in having full cross-platform play across all available platforms, Sony's continued refusal to allow cross-play between the PlayStation 4 and other consoles rendered this impossible, according to Microsoft.[57] Further, while players can use a single Epic Games account to share progress in Fortnite Battle Royale on all other platforms, those who used their PlayStation Network credentials to establish their Epic account cannot use that account on other platforms.[77][78] The account restriction was confirmed to be as a result of Sony's initial decision to prohibit cross-platform play between its PlayStation 4 and other consoles, rather than a choice Epic had made.[77][79]

By September 2018, Sony had made a decision to allow cross-platform play for the PlayStation 4 for "select third-party titles", starting with Fortnite. A beta version of the PlayStation 4 client supporting this was released for the game on September 26, 2018, the same day as Sony's announcement.[80] Tools to merge multiple Epic accounts as well as unlinking console accounts from an Epic account to attach to another were released in February 2019.[81][82]

Solo mobile players, or squads entirely consisting of mobile players will play solely with other mobile players by default for fairness; players however can use cross-platform play to join squads on other platforms, and matchmaking will consider all available matches.[83]

Promotion and marketing In May 2018, Epic announced a partnership with sports apparel manufacturing company IMG to produce official Fortnite-themed clothing.[84] A Hasbro-licensed Fortnite Battle Royale-themed version of Monopoly was announced for release by late 2018; the Fortnite Monopoly game reflects some elements of the video game, such as the money being replaced with player's lives, and the ability to protect properties on the board with walls.[85] Further, with this deal, Hasbro will produce Fortnite-based Nerf blasters, which are expected to reach retail in 2019.[86] Funko will release a series of Fortnite themed Pop! figurines by late 2018.[87]

Fortnite Battle Royale has been packaged as special bundles with both the Xbox One and Nintendo Switch, each version providing redeemable codes for V-bucks and platform-unique customization options.[88][89] A retail release of Fortnite Battle Royale, called Fortnite: Deep Freeze Bundle, was distributed by Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment for the PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and Nintendo Switch in late 2018. The package included a redeemable code for V-Bucks and unique in-game cosmetics.[90]

In October 2018, Epic launched its "Support a Creator" program for Fortnite. Individual players could designate one of several popular Fortnite streamers, selected by Epic via an application process, to support via the game client. That create would then earn money based on how many V-bucks their supporters spent within the game, at a rate of US$5 for every 10,000 V-Bucks (roughly, 5% of the monetary value).[91] Though initially planned as a limited time event, Epic found by December 2018 that millions of Fortnite players were using the promotion to support more than 10,000 streamers, and since have made it a permanent option for Fortnite and hoping this would help some creators go full-time,[92] and plans to extend this program to other games offered via the Epic Games Store, including Tom Clancy's The Division 2.[93]

Epic has partnered with the National Football League (NFL) to make character skins for each of the 32 teams in the League available to purchase for a limited time in November 2018, a result of the influence of Fortnite on NFL players, who have frequently performed Fortnite dance emotes as victory celebrations.[94]

Professional competition

The Fortnite Pro-Am event at E3 2018 One of the first professional eSports competitions using Fortnite was the Fortnite Pro-Am event, held on June 12, 2018 during the Electronic Entertainment Expo 2018, with 3,000 in attendance.[3] This tournament was announced after the success of the March 2018 stream by Ninja where he played alongside celebrities like Drake. The event featuring 50 celebrities paired with 50 top streaming players competing for prize pool of US$3 million to be given to winning teams' charities.[95] Ninja and his celebrity teammate Marshmello were the winners of this event.[96]

In May 2018, Epic announced it was setting aside US$100 million to fund various tournaments throughout the year to help grow Fornite Battle Royale into an eSport.[97] During the Fortnite Pro-Am at E3 2018, Epic announced it was setting up a 2019 Fortnite World Cup event, featuring separate series for solo players and two-player teams. All players, regardless of skill, would have an opportunity to try to gain placement in the World Cup event.[98]

During mid-2018, Epic started running a Summer Skirmish series over 8 weeks, each week having a different format, with US$8 million to be offered to winners throughout the series. The series had some initial problems; the first week event was cut short due to technical issues with game servers, while the second event ended with accusations of cheating towards the winner which Epic later verified were not true.[99] Epic launched its second competition play series, the Fall Skirmish, on September 21, 2018, with up to US$10 million in prizes for winners.[100]

Epic Games affirmed the schedule and structure of the first Fortnite World Cup in February 2019, with qualifying rounds starting in April and finals to be held in New York City between July 26 to 28, 2019. A total US$30 million prize pool including US$3 million payout to the winner will be available, the largest esports prize pool, exceeding the US$25 million prize pool from the The International 2018 Dota 2 event.[101]

Reception

Reception Aggregate score Aggregator Score Metacritic 81/100 (PC)[102] 78/100 (PS4)[103] 85/100 (Xbox One)[104] 81/100 (iOS)[105] 83/100 (Switch)[106] Review scores Publication Score Game Informer 8.5/10[107] GameSpot 8/10[108] IGN 9.6/10[109] Player count and revenue See also: Reception and accolades for Fortnite Fortnite Battle Royale has become a phenomenon, and has been compared by analysts to World of Warcraft and Minecraft for successfully drawing in players who are not average video game players.[110] Fortnite Battle Royale obtained over 10 million players two weeks after its release.[111] By March 2018, it was estimated to have more than 45 million players.[112] Three months later, in June 2018, Epic announced they had achieved over 125 million players in less than a year, with at least 40 million players playing the game once per month.[113] In November 2018, Bloomberg reported that Fortnite had over 200 million registered accounts across all platforms.[114]

Individual platform releases saw initial surges in player counts. Within a day of becoming available, the Nintendo Switch version had been downloaded over 2 million times, according to Nintendo.[115] Epic said that Fortnite had been downloaded over 15 million times for Android within three weeks of its launch.[116] On the release of Season 5 in July 2018, Akamai Technologies reported that Fortnite traffic neared 37 terabytes per second, the largest recorded amount of traffic for any video game that they have observed.[117] With its quarterly financial report ending September 30, 2018, Nintendo said that Fortnite Battle Royale had been downloaded on about half of all Switch systems they have sold, representing about 11.5 million downloads.[118]

Fortnite Battle Royale was made available to South Korea and their numerous PC bangs in November 2018; shortly after this point, Epic reported that Fortnite has surpassed a concurrent player count of 8.3 million, surpassing the game's previous record of 3.4 million in February 2018.[54]

Analysis firm SuperData estimated that Fortnite Battle Royale made over US$126 million in February 2018, surpassing Battlegrounds's revenues for the same period of US$103 million.[119] SuperData estimated Fortnite's revenues over all platforms to exceed US$223 million for the month of March.[120] By April 2018, SuperData estimated that Fortnite Battle Royale had surpassed both sales and player count on all platforms over Battlegrounds.[121] The game generated US$296 million in revenue in April, followed by US$318 million in May, according to SuperData.[122][123] By July 2018, Fortnite Battle Royale had been estimated to have brought in over US$1 billion in revenue.[124][3] Prior to the Season 5 start in July 2018, Sensor Tower estimated that the mobile version of Fortnite Battle Royale made over US$1.2 million daily; following the launch of Season 5, revenues jumped to US$2 million per day.[125] SuperData estimated that Fortnite Battle Royale brought in $2.4 billion in revenue during 2018, the highest annual revenue of any free-to-play title.[126]

At the time of Tencent's investment into Epic in 2012, Epic Games had a US$825 million valuation.[127] Because of Fortnite Battle Royale, Epic's valuation increased to US$4.5 billion as of May 2018.[128] Bloomberg raised the estimate to around US$8.5 billion by the end of 2018 should Fortnite Battle Royale reach US$2 billion during the year.[127] Partially due to the influx of revenue from Fortnite Battle Royale, Epic reduced its portion of sales it collected from the Unreal Engine Marketplace from 30% to 12% in July 2018, applying that retroactively to past sales.[129]

Impact

The Fortnite exhibition booth during the Electronic Entertainment Expo 2018 Journalists attributed Fortnite Battle Royale's success over PlayerUnknown Battlegrounds as a combination of several factors: besides being free-to-play and available on consoles, the game was released at a time when Battlegrounds was struggling with game cheaters and a toxic community, and that it features a less violent, cartoonish quality to it that, like Minecraft, was able to draw in a younger and mixed-gendered audiences to play.[130][131] Further, Epic has maintained frequent updates for the game, adding new weapons and in-game tools alongside limited-time events and longer-term narrative elements that help to further draw in players.[132] The high interest in the game within March 2018, which has been able to draw larger audiences compared to existing multiplayer games like Grand Theft Auto Online and Destiny 2, has had a financial impact on competing publishers Take-Two Interactive and Activision Blizzard, their stocks having fallen during this period, according to analysts from Morgan Stanley and KeyBanc Capital Markets Inc.[112][128] Activision's CEO Bobby Kotick, on their quarterly results released May 2018, stated that "Fortnite is definitely a lot of competition right now...it’s been a really important catalyst in attracting new gamers to gaming",[133] and the company is looking to develop its own battle royale title.[134] Electronic Arts CEO Blake Jorgensen also considered both Fortnite Battle Royale and Battlegrounds as having a significant market impact. Jorgensen said " [Fortnite is] bringing younger people into the marketplace and younger people into first-person shooters, and I think that's good for the long run health of that category for all of us in the industry".[135] Non-video game entertainment companies have also seen the impact of Fortnite. Netflix, in reporting its Q4 2018 results, stated that their competition is more with Fortnite, including streaming content related to the game, rather than rival television network stations like HBO.[136]

Part of the game's success is also considered to be related to its impact on social media.[110] By March 2018, Fortnite Battle Royale became the most-viewed game on Twitch, exceeding the average-concurrent viewership numbers of League of Legends and Battlegrounds.[137] One notable streamer was Tyler "Ninja" Blevins, who gained a large number of subscribers by March 2018, in part due to his skill and through promotions on Twitch that offered free Fortnite Battle Royale cosmetic items; by March 2018, he was estimated to be making US$500,000 a month from his streaming revenue.[138] YouTube streamer Rubén Doblas Gundersen held a Fortnite Battle Royale match with 99 other well-known YouTube streamers in late March, which drew over 1.1 million viewers, making it one of the most-watched gaming YouTube streams.[139] The Fortnite Pro-Am event held at E3 2018 was estimated to have drawn over 1.3 million views across Twitch and other streaming services, making it one of the highest-viewed live-streamed event to date.[140]

Fortnite cosplayers at E3 2018 A number of celebrities and athletes have said they play Fortnite Battle Royale, such as Chance the Rapper, Joe Jonas, Finn Wolfhard, Roseanne Barr, and Norm Macdonald.[141] For athletes, their appreciation for the game has taken on the form of recreating the various emotes in game as part of their on-field celebration dances.[142] Such Fortnite celebrations were frequently throughout the 2018 FIFA World Cup event in June and July 2018,[143] including by Antoine Griezmann after a scoring penalty kick during the final.[144]

In March 2018, Tyler Blevins hosted a stream that included Drake, Travis Scott, Kim DotCom, and Pittsburgh Steelers wide receiver JuJu Smith-Schuster all playing the game. The stream broke over 635,000 concurrent viewers, making it the highest-watched stream on Twitch outside of eSports tournaments.[145][146] By the end of 2018, Blevins had reported he had made nearly US$10 million from his Fortnite streaming activities in 2018 with over 20 million subscribers to his YouTube and Twitch channels.[147] Other notable people have expressed their fondness for the game; the Russo brothers, directors of Avengers: Infinity War, stated that they often played Fortnite Battle Royale during breaks on the film's development, leading them to propose the idea of the Thanos LTM for the game.[10] The awareness of the game from well-known celebrities has been considered a reason for further popularity and player growth of the game.[148]

Fortnite Battle Royale has been jokingly referred to as the honomyn "Fork Knife" on social media, believed to have originated with people, unfamiliar with the game, described their friends and family spending time playing the game.[149] Epic added a harvestable, non-playable "Fork Knife" food truck to the game map as the term gained popularity.[3] In September 2018, Fortnite was featured as a question on the game show Jeopardy!,[150] and was spoofed in a skit on the September 29, 2018, episode of Saturday Night Live.[151] The South Park episode "The Scoots" featured the cast wearing Fortnite-based Halloween costumes.[152] In The Big Bang Theory episode "The Citation Negation", Bernadette attempts to learn how to play Fortnite Battle Royale to beat Howard.[153] Fortnite also makes an easter egg appearance in the Disney animated film Ralph Breaks the Internet.[154] Fortnite was a central focal point on the 2018 YouTube Rewind year retrospective, and included an appearance by Ninja.[155]

With the release of the mobile version, teachers, parents, and students have found that the game had become popular to younger players due to the free-to-play nature, its cartoonish art style, and its social nature.[156] This carries over into schools, which has been seen as a disruptive element within the classroom and affecting students' ability to complete homework assignments.[157][158][159][160] Epic has since added warnings on the game's loading screens to discourage students from playing it during classes.[161] The UK's Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, Matt Hancock, expressed concern at how much time children were playing Fortnite Battle Royale and similar video games without a balance of physical exercise and social interactions.[162] Other agencies, including the United States' Center on Media and Child Health and the United Kingdom's National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children have cautioned parents that children may be influenced by the violent behavior due to Fortnite Battle Royale.[163][164] At the same time, parents have expressed appreciation for Fortnite to have their children engage socially outside of their core groups of friends in a game that is otherwise not excessively violent,[165] or see offering Fortnite as a reward for encouraging children to do well in school, offering their children the purchase of V-bucks in exchange for good grades.[166] Some parents see potential in their children becoming skilled in Fortnite as to become professional players and compete for part of the large prize pools, creating a market for tutors to help children improve their skills in the game.[167]

Other issues related to children's interest in Fortnite have been raised. Several of the security issues raised around the game are heightened with younger players who may not easily recognize such illicit schemes and put themselves at risk to privacy invasion.[168] There is some concern that pedophiles would be able to easily make contact with underage players, with at least one documented case from Florida.[169][170]

Security issues

Fortnite's popularity has drawn a network of hackers since March 2018 that target accounts with lucrative skins and emotes as to resell those accounts to other users. Some of those hackers, speaking anonymously to the BBC, stated they were making thousands of British pounds a week through these actions.[171] Authorities that monitor the dark web have found that Fortnite Battle Royale has become a popular way to engage in credit card fraud: criminals with access to stolen credit card information use that to purchase V-bucks on a freshly-made Fortnite account when they then sell through services like eBay players at a discount, often preying on children and young adults with these schemes.[172][173]

Separately, other security experts have found exploits with Fortnite and its underlying services that allow hackers to gain access to some accounts, enabling them to gain personal details, buy V-bucks, and listen in to the account's owner when they use the game's voice chat system. Epic has closed a key exploit that enabled this by January 2019.[174]

Lawsuits and other legal issues

In January 2018, Bluehole's PUBG Corp., the South Korean company behind PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds (PUBG), filed a lawsuit against Epic Games, claiming that Fortnite Battle Royale was a copyright infringement of Battlegrounds; they accused Epic Games of copying PUBG's user interface and game items.[175][176] According to Korea Times, market observers predicted that there would be little likelihood of Bluehole winning the case, as it would be difficult to establish the originality of PUBG in court due to the battle royale game genre, which includes both PUBG and Fortnite Battle Royale, being derived from the 2000 Japanese film Battle Royale.[177] The case has since closed, with PUBG Corp. dropping the lawsuit in June 2018 under undisclosed reasons.[178]

In May 2018, Epic Games filed a lawsuit against quality assurance tester Thomas Hannah after he leaked information regarding Season 4. Hannah, who had joined Epic in December 2017, breached the non-disclosure agreement by sharing details of the Season with Adam DiMarco. DiMarco later shared information in a Reddit post, spoiling the theme of the Season.[179] Epic stated that Hannah "diminished the enjoyment of the people who play, or who watch others play, Fortnite by ruining the suspense that had been building in the Fortnite community in anticipation of upcoming season".[180]

Dance emotes lawsuits The popularity of Fortnite's dance emotes, which borrow from dance moves in popular culture, have led the creators of these dances to express concern and take legal action about these moves being sold by Epic, even though the United States Copyright Office had issued statements that individual dance moves are uncopyrightable.[181][182] These include rapper 2 Milly regarding his "Milly Rock", and actor Donald Faison related to a dance move he used on the TV show Scrubs.[183] 2 Milly has started taking legal action against Epic with copyright infringement over the "Milly Rock"-based dance emote as well as asserting claims against personality rights under California law.[184][185] Actor Alfonso Ribeiro filed a similar suit against Epic for their "Fresh" emote dance, which Ribeiro says was directly based on his character Carlton Banks' dance from The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air.[186] "Backpack Kid" Russell Horning, whose dance move the Floss was popularized through live performance with Katy Perry, has also initiated legal action against Epic for copyright infringement of his dance.[187] Another lawsuit by the parent of the child that created a popular "Orange Shirt Kid" dance has also filed a lawsuit against Epic on similar grounds; in this case, while the child had submitted the dance for an Epic-run contest for a new Fortnite dance emote, he did not win, but fans petitioned Epic to include the dance anyway. The lawsuit challenges that the child was not recognized or compensated for the dance move.[188] BlocBoy JB filed another suit against Epic over his "Shoot" dance move, represented by the in-game "Hype" emote, by late January 2019.[189] Jared Nickens and Jaylen Brantley filed a lawsuit against Epic in February 2019, seeking US$20 million in damages for Epic's use of their "Running Man" dance.[190]

In at least one of these cases, that from 2 Milly, Epic is seeking the suit to be dismissed claiming that a simple dance move cannot be copyrighted, according to guidance issued by the United States Copyright Office.[191]

Similar suits have been filed against the same dance moves used in 2K Games' NBA 2K games, while the offending dance moves were removed in January 2019 from the game Forza Horizon 4, though it is unknown if this was due to legal action.[192] In the lawsuit involving Riberio's dance, the Copyright Office had refused to grant Riberio a copyright for the dance, not only because they considered it a "simple dance routine", but also because Riberio had created the dance in context of another copyrighted work, so he would likely be unable to claim ownership.[193]

Cheats and mods In October 2017, Epic Games filed civil complaints against two associates of the website Addicted Cheats, which for a payment provided cheating services to players. The company argued that the two defendants made and used altered game breaking code that was against the End User License Agreement and the Copyright Act.[194]

In October 2018, Epic Games sued YouTuber Brandon Lucas, who posts videos on the channel, Golden Modz. The lawsuit details that Lucas, cheats at the game and "promotes, advertises and sells software that enables those who use it to cheat."[195] The lawsuit also names Lucas's secondary website in which visitors are encouraged to purchase the hack and/or Fortnite user accounts preloaded with hacks.[196]

Epic also sent FNBRLeaks, a group that datamined the files Fortnite to determine new features and events that were likely coming in the near future, a cease & desist letter in December 2018, stating that their reporting of these upcoming features were negatively harming Epic and spoiling the game for the players. FNBRLeaks complied with the terms of the letter.[197]

Notes

^ Retail versions published by Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment References

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