Epic Is Winning The Battle Royale Fight: Fortnite Surpasses 125 Million Players

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Last year, Player Unknown’s Battlegrounds (PUBG) took the gaming world by storm and became the first title to surpass DOTA 2 in concurrent players on Valve’s Steam platform. PUBG’s rampant popularity drove many companies to embrace the battle royale game format, the most famous being Epic Game’s free battle royal mode for Fortnite. Epic Games may be facing a lawsuit over Fortnite Battle Royale, but from where I’m standing, it’s winning the fight for battle royale market share.

Epic released the Fortnite Battle Royale mode in September 2017, and the game quickly gained the attention of tens of millions of players, and there’s no sign of the game’s popularity waning any time soon. This week, Epic revealed that more than 125 million unique players have logged into Fortnite since its inception. 

Fortnite Battle Royale’s rapid rise to the top of the gaming charts is in part due to the game being free, but it’s also largely because the game is widely accessible to almost anyone. Epic Games offers Fortnite for PC, Xbox One, PlayStation 4, and mobile devices, and it just landed on the Nintendo Switch this week.

Fortnite Battle Royale wouldn’t be so popular if the game weren’t fun to play, but there may be more to its popularity than compelling gameplay. A recent article in LiveScience questioned the addictive qualities of Fortnite Battle Royale. LiveScience spoke with Randy Kulman, who is the clinical director of South County Child and Family Consultants in Wakefield, Rhode Island, who posited that Fortnite’s short 20-minute rounds and chance-based gameplay tempt you to play another round in the same way that casino slot machines temp you to stick another dollar in the slot.

And now, Epic is adding a financial incentive to the mix, which will surely draw more players into the fold. Last month, the company announced that it would put $100,000,000 up for Fortnite eSports competitions for the 2018/2019 season. Today, it revealed some details about how it would distribute the prize money.

Epic said that it plans to spread the prize pool between “community organized events, online events, and major organized competitions all over the world.” The Fortnite World Cup Qualifiers would begin in the fall, with the first Fortnite World Cup finals scheduled for late 2019. Epic said the qualifying events would be open to everyone. Most of the competition would focus on Solo and Duo events, but there would also be events for squads.

Kevin Carbotte

 Kevin Carbotte is a contributing writer for Tom's Hardware who primarily covers VR and AR hardware. He has been writing for us for more than four years. 

8 Comments Comment from the forums
  • valeman2012
    70% OF PLAYERS are cheaters

    F2P always will have more cheaters than B2P Games
    Reply
  • gggplaya
    21054240 said:
    70% OF PLAYERS are cheaters

    F2P always will have more cheaters than B2P Games

    70% of players aren't cheaters, you just suck!!!

    Epic is very quick to patch hacks, cheats and exploit. In fact, they're the fastest game company I've seen to address this issue. Even non-F2P games have more hackers and cheaters than I've seen in fortnite in the last couple months.

    Reply
  • valeman2012
    Too bad Fortnite stole the "hot topic" idea from PUBG, when they PUBG was skyrocket on the top of mountain.

    Another meanness comment is when users says Epic games fix their game better, no sht they own the engine...
    However, it remains F2P always will have more cheaters.
    Reply
  • gggplaya
    21057235 said:
    Too bad Fortnite stole the "hot topic" idea from PUBG, when they PUBG was skyrocket on the top of mountain.

    Another meanness comment is when users says Epic games fix their game better, no sht they own the engine...
    However, it remains F2P always will have more cheaters.

    Well, PUBG stole is from the hunger games which stole it from a japanese film maker.

    But I don't understand your comment that F2P will always have more cheaters. That's not true in this case, especially given the over 125 million player popularity. Alot of small budget developers like for APB reloaded only have a handful of people total, they can't keep up with the hackers, but that's because it's a tiny studio with a tiny budget, with a free 2 play game that survives off loot crates.

    Reply
  • valeman2012
    21057297 said:
    21057235 said:
    Too bad Fortnite stole the "hot topic" idea from PUBG, when they PUBG was skyrocket on the top of mountain.

    Another meanness comment is when users says Epic games fix their game better, no sht they own the engine...
    However, it remains F2P always will have more cheaters.

    Well, PUBG stole is from the hunger games which stole it from a japanese film maker.

    But I don't understand your comment that F2P will always have more cheaters. That's not true in this case, especially given the over 125 million player popularity. Alot of small budget developers like for APB reloaded only have a handful of people total, they can't keep up with the hackers, but that's because it's a tiny studio with a tiny budget, with a free 2 play game that survives off loot crates.
    But again, PUBG is one that embraced the idea before Fortnite stole it.
    Reply
  • gggplaya
    21057332 said:
    21057297 said:
    21057235 said:
    Too bad Fortnite stole the "hot topic" idea from PUBG, when they PUBG was skyrocket on the top of mountain.

    Another meanness comment is when users says Epic games fix their game better, no sht they own the engine...
    However, it remains F2P always will have more cheaters.

    Well, PUBG stole is from the hunger games which stole it from a japanese film maker.

    But I don't understand your comment that F2P will always have more cheaters. That's not true in this case, especially given the over 125 million player popularity. Alot of small budget developers like for APB reloaded only have a handful of people total, they can't keep up with the hackers, but that's because it's a tiny studio with a tiny budget, with a free 2 play game that survives off loot crates.
    But again, PUBG is one that embraced the idea before Fortnite stole it.

    That's irrelevant to your cheating comment, it's like you're answering a question with an attack on the developer instead. But better optimization is not the reason Fortnite is so popular. It's because of all the Pop Culture references in the game, as well as Viral Dances found on youtube, and it never takes itself too seriously unlike PUBG which is very serious.

    Reply
  • valeman2012
    21057367 said:
    21057332 said:
    21057297 said:
    21057235 said:
    Too bad Fortnite stole the "hot topic" idea from PUBG, when they PUBG was skyrocket on the top of mountain.

    Another meanness comment is when users says Epic games fix their game better, no sht they own the engine...
    However, it remains F2P always will have more cheaters.

    Well, PUBG stole is from the hunger games which stole it from a japanese film maker.

    But I don't understand your comment that F2P will always have more cheaters. That's not true in this case, especially given the over 125 million player popularity. Alot of small budget developers like for APB reloaded only have a handful of people total, they can't keep up with the hackers, but that's because it's a tiny studio with a tiny budget, with a free 2 play game that survives off loot crates.
    But again, PUBG is one that embraced the idea before Fortnite stole it.

    That's irrelevant to your cheating comment, it's like you're answering a question with an attack on the developer instead. But better optimization is not the reason Fortnite is so popular. It's because of all the Pop Culture references in the game, as well as Viral Dances found on youtube, and it never takes itself too seriously unlike PUBG which is very serious.

    It is what its.

    Epic games PUBG embraced that idea, Epic games decided to steal it. It is what its.

    Reply
  • DerekA_C
    I see Realm Royale becoming the next boom in BR. it is faster paced doesn't seem to suffer any performance issues they do have some quirks but what game doesn't anymore seems to be a very common thing in games release turds and sort of polish them later(Higher minimum PC spec's cough) for the same DX11 API which is utter garbage with what is out there, but developers seem to refuse to want to learn more of Vulkan and DX12 honestly I am sick of MS having their hand in everyone's pocket so DX needs to DIE. Vulkan is the future and anyone denying it is being paid to deny it.
    Reply