Fortnite: ten historical brands that Battle Royale has arrived

Fortnite is undoubtedly one of the most successful games in gaming history. Since 2017, when it was launched to compete with PlayerUnknown's Battleground, its Battle Royale version has been conquering fans and more fans of electronic games and the survival genre, in addition to filling the coffers of its developer, Epic Games, with a lot of money.

Whether dominating streaming platforms, debuting on the competitive scene, allying with the world of music or reinventing itself in times of the new coronavirus pandemic, Fortnite has been breaking record after record, showing that it still has much to grow, conquer and overcome. For this reason, we have prepared a list of the main numbers of Battle Royale since its launch, which prove – at least for now – that there is no limit to this Epic Games audience success.

Currently, it is possible to play Fortnite, which already has 250 million active players, on Xbox One, PlayStation 4, Nintendo Switch, PC, Mac, iOS and Android.

Ninja ft. Drake

Ninja and Drake made a Duo in Fortnite. (Image: Youtube Ninja)

It was on a Twitch broadcast in March 2018. A few months after the release of Fortnite. Streamer Tyler “Ninja” Blevins broke the record for simultaneous viewers of the platform when playing Battle Royale accompanied by Canadian rapper Drake. Almost 640,000 people followed the broadcast, which also featured rapper Travis Scott and JuJu Smith-Schuster, a football player for the Pittsburgh Steelers. A month later, in April, Ninja would surpass his own brand, reaching almost 670 thousand people simultaneously on a Twitch live.

300 million in 200 days

Released for Apple phones in March 2018, the game achieved financial returns. It took just 200 days to generate US$ 300 million worldwide on iOS. However, it did not outperform Pokémon GO. That reached US$ 300 million on Apple devices in just 113 days. Fortnite scattered the numbers of games like PUBG and Clash Royale. While the competing Battle Royale totaled only US$ 47 million in 173 days. It took Clash Royale more than two months to reach the US$ 300 million mark.

200 million in action

In November 2018, Epic Games reported that Fortnite reached the milestone of 200 million active players. Entering the list of the ten most played games in history. The record represented a 60% increase over the previous count, which was 125 million in June, just five months earlier.

The biggest recipe in history

According to data from SuperData, in 2018, Fortnite reached the highest collection of free games. It also had the highest annual revenue of any game in history, at US$ 2.4 billion. All this thanks to skins, emotes and other cosmetic items. Battle passes were also very relevant to this record, accounting for at least a third of the game's income.

DJ Marshmello

DJ Marshmello's performance reached the mark of 10.7 million simultaneous players. (Image: Epic Games)

In February 2019, a ten-minute performance by DJ Marshmello broke the record for simultaneous Fortnite players. 10.7 million unique users tuned in to watch a live presentation within the game. It occurred in the Pleasant Park area of the map. The previous record was 8.3 million players, reached in November 2018, in the destruction of the strange purple cube. On Youtube, the video with the complete presentation of Marshmello at Battle Royale, has more than 50 million views.

250 million in action

Just three months after announcing that Fortnite had reached 200 million active players, Epic Games went public to highlight yet another Battle Royale brand: the 50 million growth in the number of active users of the game. Reaching 250 million in total, almost the number of inhabitants of Indonesia, the fourth most populous country in the world.

Fortnite World Cup

The consolidation of Epic Games' Battle Royale on the global competitive scene has also brought impressive numbers. Starting with the prize amounts of the first edition of the Fortnite World Cup, which had 40 million players participating in all. The tournament distributed US$ 30 million, with each athlete qualified for the finals in New York, United States. Guaranteeing the minimum amount of US$ 50 thousand.

Bugha was the first Fortnite World Cup champion and made US$ 3 million. (Image: Epic Games)

The competition also broke the record audience for tournaments on Twitch with the broadcast of the grand solo final. In which more than 1.3 million spectators followed the victory of the American Kyle “Bugha” Giersdorf, aged 16. Bringing together audiences from Youtube and Twitch, the total number of simultaneous viewers peaked at over 2.3 million during the last day of competition.

Black Hole

In October 2019, the black hole event, created by Epic Games for the end of season 10, broke viewing records. Called “The End”, he was responsible for destroying the recurring map and sucking out all players. After rockets and explosions hit the island where the game takes place. It was two days of dark screen and game off the air, waiting for the start of the second chapter of the game.

The suspense generated by the developer ended up causing about seven million people to watch the event simultaneously on streaming services. At Twitch, there were more than 1.7 million people, the largest brand ever registered on the platform. On Twitter, the peak of simultaneous viewers was 1.4 million people. Making the gaming event the most viewed in the network's history. On YouTube, 4.3 million viewers watched the event at the same time, spread across all channels.

Best seller in 2019

Travis Scott's show broke the record for simultaneous players in the game. (Image: Epic Games)

After the record revenue in 2018, Fortnite returned to doing well in 2019. Despite having a 25% drop from the previous year's revenue, Battle Royale was again the most profitable game of the year, earning US$ 1.8 billion.

Travis Scott

In times of pandemic of the new coronavirus and social isolation, the “Astronomical” show was held. Organized by rapper Travis Scott on Fortnite's servers, it broke the record for simultaneous players in the game. There were 12.3 million watching the transmission at the same time. With 27.7 million total unique users participating in the event between April 23 and 25. The number of views exceeded 45 million, with some of the fans watching more than one presentation. It is worth mentioning that these numbers do not take into account those who watched the show outside the game. This is thanks to streamers who broadcast the event on platforms like Twitch and YouTube.