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.

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.

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.

The number of daily active users of the iOS Fortnite app more than doubled in Norway within the period from March to May 2020. According to Airnow, the royal battle gaming app recorded over ** thousand daily active users in May.

It seemed that the coronavirus outbreak and its consequences had also an impact on app consumption. According to Airnow, the number of daily active users of the iOS Fortnite app in Denmark exceeded ** thousand in April 2020. This was the highest amount of DAU of the royal battle gaming app in the past year, and a considerable increase of over *** thousand compared to the previous month.

The statistic shows the leading eSports games in Vietnam in 2018, broken down by number of monthly players. In that year, around 100 million monthly users played the game League of Legends, followed by Fortnite with about *** million monthly players.

In November 2023, battle royale title Fortnite launched the OG season, taking players back to the original Chapter 1 map and re-introducing various in-game items from the earliest seasons of the game. The nostalgia was strong in this one, and Fortnite players on Xbox and PlayStation consoles spent nearly 1.48 billion hours on the online title in November 2023, up by 146 percent from the hours spent on Fortnite in the preceding month.

At the end of 2024, digital gaming store Epic Games Store reported approximately 74 million monthly active users via PC. This represents a slight decline compared to the previous period. The EGS reported approximately 295 million total PC users. Epic Games Store is operated by Epic Games, the publisher of battle royale hit Fortnite.

Fortnite is one of the most popular video games across the world, with the battle royale title racking up a global user count of over *** million. In September 2020, Fortnite record almost ** million monthly active users across all video game consoles.

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.

At the end of 2024, digital gaming store Epic Games Store reported approximately 295 million users via PC. This represents a significant growth compared to the previous period. Overall, the EGS had approximately 74 million monthly active users via PC. Epic Games Store is operated by Epic Games, the publisher of battle royale hit Fortnite.

According to a February 2020 survey of Fortnite gamers in the United States, ** percent of respondents played Fortnite roughly *** to *** hours per week, while **** percent admitted to playing for ** weekly hours or more.

In January 2025, Fortnite still was one of the most popular video games across the world, ranking first among the most popular PlayStation 5 titles worldwide based on monthly active users. First-person-shooter Call of Duty: Modern Warfare II/Warzone 2.0 placed second.

At the end of 2021, digital gaming store Epic Games Store reported approximately 13.2 million peak concurrent users via PC. This represents a 1.5 percent growth compared to the previous period. The EGS reported approximately 160 million total users. Epic Games Store is operated by Epic Games, the publisher of battle royale hit Fortnite.

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.

In January 2025, first-person shooter (FPS) favorite Call of Duty was the second-most popular game on the Xbox Series S and Xbox Series X consoles worldwide, ranking second based on monthly active users. Battle royale game Fortnite ranked first.

In December 2023, Epic Games was the most popular video game publisher across Xbox and PlayStation gaming consoles, accounting for 13.9 percent of monthly active users on the platforms. The resurgence of Fortnite has led to Epic Games overtaking the previous leader, Electronic Arts (EA), who made up 13.6 percent of console gaming MAU during the measured month.

Downloadable content is a way of enhancing the video gaming experience for the players by giving them access to exciting new content which can range from the purely aesthetic changes to upgrades to characters and items. During a 2019 survey of gamers, it was found that they spent an average of ** U.S. dollars each year on in-game transactions in League of Legends.

The reasons why Fortnite has become such a global hit are clear to see. Not only is the game free to play, but it is also available on most gaming platforms. On top of this, the Battle Royale-style, in which up to 100 players fight it out at one time, mean that the re-playability of the game is infinite – each game is unique. However, while the game itself is free to download, users are encouraged to purchase downloadable content (DLC) to enhance their gaming experience. In 2019, Fornite users in the United States spent an average of 82 U.S. dollars on DLC. The most common in-game purchases included upgrades to characters and outfits, as well as to the gliders which transport the players into the battle arena. This model for generating revenue seems to have been a success for Epic Games as player spending on the Fortnite mobile app consistently reaches million of U.S. dollars each month.

As of the second half of 2018, ** percent of global mobile users were still using apps *** month after they had downloaded them. The average *********** user retention rate of mobile apps worldwide stood at ** percent with a ** percent churn rate. App user retention/br> The worldwide app retention rate stood at ** percent in 2019, meaning that almost a third of app users returned to an application ****** times or more. This is a drop from the ** percent retention rate in 2018. The global app abandonment rate in 2019 was ** percent, meaning that 25 percent of users abandoned an app after only using it once. However, not all apps are created equally in terms of user engagement – overall, retail apps were opened an average of **** times per month, whereas media and entertainment apps had over ** monthly launches. As of the second half of 2018, the average number of app launches across all verticals was ** opens per month. In 2018, mid-core games had the highest Growth Index score with rating of *****. This, according to the source, is due to the growth of battle royale and MOBA games such as Fortnite. Other app verticals with significant increases in growth and engagement increases included ride-hail and taxi apps and sports games as well as video and streaming apps.