Fortnite, the current most popular battle royale game in the world, has done produced some deep profits with its recent iOS release on mobile for Apple devices.
Based on a report from marketing intelligence company Sensor Tower, they’ve concluded that Fortnite on iOS has brought some huge profits- in excess of $300M in the mere 200 days the game has been available on the App Store on March 15th, 2018.
However, you shouldn’t really be too surprised given the current state of the game. But on mobile, the release had the momentum from the PC’s popularity as a crutch to start the snowball effect, so the PC’s start was likely (a lot) less profitable compared to the mobile version.
Fortnite is completely free-to-play that’s currently available on every modern system and generates cash through in-game purchases of purely cosmetic-only objects. In essence, Epic Games, the developer, makes money by selling virtual goods like pretty much any other game or app on the planet. This is nothing new, but I thought I’d clarify for non-gamers.
Fortnite also has a paid mode called Save the World, but the profits from this don’t hold a candle to regular cosmetic purchases. Players can buy virtual pixels on any platform: PC, iOS, Android, Xbox One, PlayStation 4, and Nintendo Switch using the game’s V-Bucks virtual currency, which can be automatically synced across all systems using the same account.
The report from Sensor Tower shows that Fortnite beat out other games like Clash Royale, Honor of Kings, and Knives Out in its first 200 days. Worldwide players have spent an average of $1.5M per day on iOS alone since the launch and that number increased to $2.5M since Season 6 went live on September 27, 2018. Fortnite is no joke. It’s not even the most popular game in just the battle royale genre- you could say it’s the most popular game in the world.