In 2022, the multi-platform free-to-play (F2P) gaming title Fortnite generated an estimated 4.4 billion U.S. dollars in annual revenues. This figure decreased from the previous year when the battle royale title made about 4.8 billion U.S. dollars in revenues.

In 2024, video game publisher and software developer Epic Games is projected to generate approximately 5.8 billion U.S. dollars in gross revenues, up from 5.1 billion U.S. dollars in 2020.

How does Epic Games make money? Epic Games' gross does not only include game revenue from the company battle royale hit Fortnite, but also engine revenue derived from game licenses and royalties, as well as Unreal Engine assets. Epic is the developer of the gaming engine Unreal Engine, which is currently monetized under a royalty model, meaning that is can be downloaded for free and Epic claims a percentage of sales revenue. Currently, Epic is not claiming a fee for developers that publish their games on the Epic Games Store. The Epic Games Store (EGS) was launched in December 2018. In May 2020, Epic announced that their share of royalties for games developed in Unreal Engine are waived until developers have earned their first 1 million U.S. dollars in revenue. Other income streams of the company include Epic Games Store revenue, and Merchandise and other revenue. Epic Games Store upsetting the industry standard One of the biggest headlines regarding the launch of Epic’s own digital storefront was the company’s attitude to developer / store revenue split. Gaming stores and app platforms including Valve’s Steam, the Apple App Store, or Google Play, usually take a 30 percent commission cut from game sales and in-game revenues. The Epic Games Store was released with the announcement that the EGS would only claim 12 percent of revenue, leaving 88 percent to the developers. This approach, as well as Epic’s attempt to circumvent Apple’s monetization strategies in the iOS app of Fortnite, has made many headlines, led to Apple removing the app from its App Store, and resulted in the still ongoing lawsuit Epic vs. Apple.

In 2024, video game publisher and software developer Epic Games is projected to generate approximately 907 million U.S. dollars in gross income, down from 1.83 billion U.S. dollars in 2019. In the most recently ended year, the company's gross revenue was estimated to be5.6 billion U.S. dollars.

In 2024, Epic Games had an estimated 4,358 employees worldwide, which represents a significant reduction from 2022 after a round of layoffs in September 2023. These layoffs affected 830 employees, which translated to about 16 percent of Epic’s workforce. How many people work on Fortnite? While it is hard to say how many of Epic Games’ employees work on the battle royale hit, it is safe to say that it is a significant number of employees. Most of the video game publisher and software developer's employees were working in the gaming segment, accounting for nearly 900 employees in 2019 when the company last revealed the figures publicly. For scale, these figures pale compared to Ubisoft, the gaming industry leader based on workforce. The French-headquartered company currently employs about 20,000 people. Video game industry layoffs The gaming company has also been affected by the wider tech industry layoffs that started rolling in at the beginning of 2023. Although the exact figures remain unclear, it is estimated that more than 11,000 video game industry workers were laid off in 2023. Additionally, 2024 is not shaping up to be much kinder, as already nearly 6,000 game developers lost their jobs during industry layoffs until the end of January.

Epic Games’ layoff of 830 employees is one of the largest of the 2023-24 industry shakeup , ranking fourth behind Unity Technologies (2,900 employees laid off in 3 rounds so far), Microsoft Gaming (close to 2,000 layoffs), Electronic Arts, and Sony Interactive Entertainment (both other 1,000 game devs laid off).