How many people play Fortnite? After bursting onto the scene in 2017, Fortnite has since become a worldwide phenomenon, amassing 650 million players across the globe as of November 2023, up from 400 million in May 2021. Why is Fortnite so popular? The reasons Fortnite has become such a global hit are clear. Not only is the game free to play, but it is also available on most gaming platforms. On top of this, Fortnite's most popular gameplay mode is the battle royale mode, in which up to 100 players fight it at once. This means that the re-playability of the game is infinite – each game is unique. Keeping players engaged with live services Fortnite Battle Royale is also a live service game, meaning that the game receives regular content updates to keep players engaged. Each season of the game roughly lasts 10 weeks and features events such as online concerts, and cosmetic changes. The game’s current iteration is called "鬼HUNTERS (Demon HUNTERS)" with a theme around yōkai, hunters and Japanese culture. Live service games are here to stay By offering cross-platform, multiplayer gaming with a live service schedule, Fortnite covers two of the biggest gaming industry trends, which the majority of the industry intend to follow. A 2023 of global gaming studios found that more than nine in ten studios were either working on or intending to release a live services title. With regular, cadenced, and themed updates to free-to-play games, studios motivate players to keep returning and, eventually, spend not only time but also money on the game. This seems to work for the parent company Epic Games – Fortnite was one of the most downloaded PlayStation F2P game in the EU and North America in 2024.

Having burst onto the scene in 2017, Fortnite has since become a worldwide phenomenon, amassing almost 250 million players across the globe as of March 2019. Having first been released in July 2017, the battle royale game took just two weeks to reach 10 million players, a figure which doubled to 20 million players after only six weeks. In less than a year, the game had acquired a staggering 125 million players.

Action role-playing game Black Myth: Wukong topped the 2024 list for peak number of concurrent players on the online gaming platform Steam, with 2.4 million peak concurrent players. The action-adventure game Palworld, which was released in January 2024, was ranked second. Is Steam keeping pace with the console giants? The fight for supremacy between PC and console gamers is an eternal one. However, it seems that Steam, the main online PC gaming platform, can still keep up with the console giants. In January 2023, Steam registered a record 33 million simultaneous users at peak time, impressive considering the figure stood at 27.4 million just two years before. One of the main advantages of Steam is the staggering library of games available to users, and it appears that players are not afraid of splashing the cash to play their favorite games.   Battle of the Battle Royale games While PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds reigns supreme in the Steam universe, it has stiff competition in the form of its battle royale brother, Fortnite. First released in July 2017, and not available on Steam, free-to-play Fortnite very quickly amassed millions of players and soon became a worldwide hit. Having scooped the award for Best Multiplayer Game at The Game Awards 2018, Epic Games’ smash hit shows no signs of slowing down. But with new players, such as Apex Legends, constantly entering the game, will Fortnite and PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds be able to hold on to their loyal fan bases?

Most Fortnite players spend less than 10 hours a week playing, with 36% playing less than 5 hours and 34% playing 6 to 10 hours. Meanwhile, 17% play 11 to 15 hours, 8% play 16 to 20 hours, and only 5% play more than 21 hours a week.

Battle royale game Fortnite has hosted several high-profile in-game events which have drawn millions of players worldwide. The Galactus event, which concluded Fortnite's Marvel-themed season 4 of chapter 2 in November 2020, drew 15.3 million concurrent players and still holds the record to date. In November 2024, Remix: The Finale event set the record for a Fortnite in-game concert, attracting 14.3 million players. Additionally, while not a concert or a special event, the launch of Fortnite OG, featuring the game's original map, in November 2023, was the most successful day for the battle royale title, drawing over 44 million players in a day.

First released at the start of 2017, PUBG: Battlegrounds (previously known as PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds) is one of the most popular games on Steam and had 944,484 peak concurrent players in the last recorded month, July 2025. The highest number of concurrent players was recorded in January 2018 at 3.24 million. One of the biggest games on Steam PUBG gained a devoted legion of fans in a short space of time after its release, and cumulative unit sales of the game hit 75 million in December 2021. The game has also been critically acclaimed — it won the Best Multiplayer Game at The Game Awards in 2017 and its free-to-play mobile version for Android and iOS, released in 2018, was nominated for Best Mobile Game at The 2018 Game Awards. This critical success has also translated into commercial success, as the game generated millions of U.S. dollars of revenue, most successfully in the United States. On January 12, 2022, the game has become free to play. Battle of the Battle Royale games PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds is an online battle royale game in which up to 100 hundred players battle it out until there is only one player or one team left standing. This format of game has become very popular in recent years. While PUBG has a strong following, especially on Steam, it has come under pressure from rival battle royale game Fortnite. First released just several months after PUBG, Fortnite has since become a cultural phenomenon, amassing 500 million registered users in just six years. As of 2025, both PUB and Fortnite are still going strong with their loyal audiences.

First released in 2017, the battle royale game Fortnite has become popular with audiences worldwide. The game also has a sizeable eSports segment, and Kyle Giersdorf, also known as Bugha, is the most successful Fortnite eSports player with lifetime earnings from the game of 3.73 million U.S. dollars. Second-ranked David Wang, also known as Aqua, has accumulated about 2.19 million U.S. dollars in winnings from the game.

Registered Users: The Numbers Behind Gaming's Biggest Platforms

The scale of today's gaming platforms is staggering. Roblox projects 8.6 billion accounts by 2025—exceeding Earth's population of 8.2 billion—while Fortnite reached 650 million registered users in 2023.

Raw registration numbers tell only part of the story. Roblox users show deeper platform engagement, spending an average of 2.5 hours daily within its ecosystem. Fortnite's growth from 20 million users in 2017 to 650 million in 2023 reflects a more measured but consistent expansion.

Both platforms face similar challenges with account duplication and inactive users. For a clearer picture of true popularity, daily active user (DAU) metrics provide better insight: Roblox maintains 88.9 million daily active players, while Fortnite shows more seasonal fluctuations in its daily engagement patterns.

Kyle Giersdorf, more commonly known by his gamertag Bugha, was the most successful Fortnite player in the United States based on prize money earnings as of January 2025. Giersdorf's total career earnings through Fortnite, as of that month, exceeded 3.7 million U.S. dollars. Meanwhile, Harrison Chang aka psalm came in second place with total career earnings amounting to around 1.87 million U.S. dollars. eSports tournament prize pools Professional eSports players can earn up to millions of dollars in prize money at international competitions. As of the year-end 2024, the Dota 2 championships had amassed the highest cumulative prize pool from eSports games worldwide. The International, which is a Dota 2 tournament, was the most lucrative eSports tournament worldwide, with the winners of the 2021 iteration of The International walking away with approximately 40 million U.S. dollars. Popular battle royale games Battle royale games are multiplayer games which combine aspects of free-for-all or team-based shooters with components from survival games, such as having to scavenge for equipment within a hostile open-world environment. As of January 2025, Fortnite was the most popular PlayStation 5 game based on monthly active users worldwide, ranking above entries such as Call of Duty and Grand Theft Auto V. When it came to the most streamed battle royale games worldwide Fortnite also took the top spot, surpassing Apex Legends and Call of Duty: Warzone, which racked up 4.7 million weekly viewer hours in March 2025.

Apex Legends became an instant hit on its release in February 2019. Despite the growth in players slowing down in the months after the game's initial release, Apex Legends crossed 170 million players life-to-date as of October 2024. Apex Legends popular among eSports fans Apex Legends is a battle royale game which pits up to 20 three-person squads against each other in a fight to the death an island. While the game evidently has millions of devoted players, many more experience the game through some of their favorite eSports players. The Respawn Entertainment game is consistently one of the top games streamed on Twitch, with Apex Legends viewers watching in their thousands to see teams battle it out. In June 2024, approximately 7 million hours of Apex Legends were watched on major livestreaming platorms worldwide, making it one of the most popular games on Twitch and illustrating its appeal to both players and viewers alike. The rise of battle royale Battle royale games often include hundreds of players competing against each other at one time and this large-scale game mode has become increasingly popular in recent years thanks to the success of games such as Fortnite and PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds (PUBG). While many of the games are free to play, players can invest money on in-game purchases, which include upgrades to characters and players. Indeed, player spending in battle royale games often runs into the thousands and spending on PUBG Mobile even surpassed the 1.6 billion U.S. dollar mark in September 2020.

Michał Kamiński, playing under the ID Kami, was the highest-earning Fortnite player in Poland as of January 2025. Kamiński is the leading Fortnite player in the entire country. Between 2018 and 2025, the e-sports player accumulated over *** million U.S. dollars in prize money earnings.

The top earner in the battle royale video game Fortnite from Denmark was the gamer tag Anas. He earned over *** million U.S. dollars in professional Fortnite tournaments in the period from February 2018 to January 2025. In second place came Th0masHD, Thomas Høxbro Davidsen, who earned roughly *** million U.S. dollars' worth of prize money. Epic Games developed the survival and royale battle video game Fortnite in 2017. The different game mode versions are available not only for computers and consoles, but also for handheld and mobile devices.

In March 2025, Fortnite was the top battle royale title across Twitch with more than 12 million weekly viewer hours. Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare, which was published by Activision Blizzard, was ranked third with 4.7 million viewership hours during the measured period.

Danila Yakovenko, or Malibuca, had the highest earnings in professional Fortnite tournaments among Russian e-sporters as of April 12, 2025, measured at around *********** U.S. dollars. Fortnite was one of the most-streamed games on Twitch in the Russian language.

Thanks to his second place finish at the Fortnite World Cup Finals in 2019, Jaden Ashman, also known as Wolfiez, is the highest earning Fortnite player from the United Kingdom as of January 2025. Ashman's earnings from the game reaching 1.37 million U.S. dollars, making him the only player based in the UK to hit the six-figure mark for career earnings.

The top earner in the battle royale video game Fortnite from Sweden was Moussa Faour, going by the gamer tag Chapix. He earned around ******* U.S. dollars in professional Fortnite tournaments as of January 2025. In second place was Crue, Theo Ferrer, who earned ******* U.S. dollars' worth of prize money. Epic Games developed the survival and royale battle video game Fortnite in 2017. The different game mode versions are available not only for computers and consoles, but also for handheld and mobile devices.

Battle royale game Fortnite has hosted several high-profile in-game events which have drawn millions of players worldwide and are also immensely popular on streaming platforms. In December 2023, Fortnite hosted an in-game Eminem concert as part of its Big Bang Event, the finale of the then-ending OG season. The concert was a success, peaking at 3 million concurrent streaming viewers.

Based on a ranking of the all-time prize money earned by the leading eSports players in Fortnite from the Netherlands, Rojo, the gamer tag of Dave Jong, outperformed all other players earning a total of over 1.2 million U.S. dollars. Mitr0, the gamer tag of Dmitri Van de Vrie, came second in the ranking with an earning total of approximately 830 thousand U.S. dollars as of January 2025. Fortnite on Twitch The popularity of Fortnite on the streaming platform Twitch waxed and waned greatly throughout the months between January of 2018 and February 2025. The highest peak occurred in July of 2018, with over 205,000 viewers. Since then, the viewership of Fortnite events have decreased overall. Prizemoney in eSports Fortnite tournaments had a cumulative prize pool of approximately 12.27 million U.S. dollars in 2024 – the fourth-largest among all major eSports disciplines in that year. The leader of the ranking that year was Dota 2, with an impressive 23.86 million U.S. dollars in prizes. It was followed by Counter-Strike 2 at over 20.8 million U.S. dollars.

The top earner from Norway in the battle royal video game Fortnite was Emil Bergquist Pedersen, going by the gamer tag Nyhrox. As of January 2025, he has earned over *** million U.S. dollars in professional tournaments. In second place was MrSavage, Martin Foss, who earned roughly ******* U.S. dollars' worth of prize money. Epic Games developed the survival and royale battle video game Fortnite in 2017. The different game mode versions are available not only for computers and consoles, but also for handheld and mobile devices.

Since its release in 2017, Fortnite has become one of the most popular games in the world. The Battle Royale game, in which up to 100 players fight it out at one time until one player is left standing, generated revenue of *** U.S. dollars in December 2019, more an increase of *** million U.S. dollars compared to the precious month.

Fortnite – the money maker With *** million users registered worldwide in early 2020, it is no wonder that Fortnite is making its developers, Epic Games, a lot of money. The game has found the most success in the United States, where it generated a staggering ** million U.S. dollars in its first year after release. Given the nature of the game and the trend in gaming as a whole, it will come as no shock that the vast majority of Fortnite players in the United States were male, with over ** percent falling into the 18-34 age category.

In-game purchases key to success Given that Fortnite is a free-to-play game, how does it generate such a vast amount of revenue? The answer lies, as with many other commercially successful free-to-play games, in in-game purchases. According to a survey carried out in the United States in February 2020, about 77 percent of Fortnite players admitted to making in-game purchases. Using their hard-earned cash to purchase V-Bucks, gamers then use the game’s currency to buy upgrades ranging from outfits and characters to gliders. What’s more, almost ** percent of U.S. Fortnite players confessed to spending money on emotes, which allow their character to celebrate their kills and victories with elaborate dance moves.