Epic Games Could Soon Be Worth A Staggering $8 Billion Thanks To Fortnite's Success

I like Epic, the way I used to like Valve, when they were actually developing games. Their contribution to gaming, with Unreal, Unreal Tournament,Gears of War, Unreal Engine and their stance against Microsoft when they tried to create a close guarded environment for PC games development, has won my respect.

Fortnite - such a bizarre thing

Love or hate it, Fortnite deserves its success given the lack of pay to win elements, family friendly graphics and gameplay and near infinite replay all for free.

it's a wonder companies still make retail games when you look at this! got to think nintendo will look to take advantage of this one way or another, assume Mario Kart touch will be doing this.

I don't play Fortnite, but all my summer students from the Arab Emirates do. Truly a global sensation.

I’m 34 years old. I was deep into the scene of FPS games when I was younger. I remember Cliffy B. as creating some of the best maps for Unreal (Tournament), some in his free time. At some point I even chatted with him.

He’s like the only name I can remember from back then. It is amazing to see how successful he has become. His inspiration comes too late, though, I have chosen a very different career path, lol.

Overblown success. It's not that good of a game. Bad? Certainly not. But right now the hype is out of control. It can't last.

NOBODY.CARES. This is a NINTENDO news site. You don't report on SEGA or other studios being worth money, so stop making pointless Epic and Fortnite articles just for a few clicks.

@Matthew010 it's on a Nintendo platform, the switch has contributed to their coffers, so therefore it's relevant to this site..you know, because it reports on Nintendo related topics 😑

@Matthew010

Fortnite is on Switch though, and this news is related to that. And fyi, NL has reported on SEGA's financial situations in the past.

If you're not interested, just don't click it.

@Matthew010 if you don’t like the title. Don’t click

@Matthew010
Crikey calm down dear.

On topic: I've downloaded the game but I haven't gotten around to actually playing it. I've been more curious about their engine instead. I do wonder how easy/hard to pick it up and develop with it...

It's a lot of fun to play. So more power to them I guess.

Also, it has attracted a great scene of tournament and stream players. This one will last a long time, and evolve beyond what we currently know it to be.

@Equinox It's not going away anytime soon.

@Equinox Have you ever looked at the best selling franchises of all time? Almost ALL of them are marketed towards children. To say it is only a fad is rubbish. Do you call Mario, Star Wars, Hello Kitty, Pokemon and Minecraft a fad even though they have lasted decades? I can't particularly say you are wrong, but your expectation reeks of "Its not suited for me, it will die soon."

And I don't get what is so wrong about its success. Epic is now funding more and more capital into the Unreal Engine. Better games that are NOT Fortnite will come your way, seems irrational to keep barking at a cloud that provides you rain

How about spending some of that money om a bloody replay and carear tab!!!!!!!

The next big thing will be along soon.

I can never seem to just simply open the game and play it, always something down load and restart. Not what I want to be doing.

The few games I’ve had I’ve enjoyed. I also like a global trend as much as the next culture watcher...

Anyway, my impatcience aside, this whole trajectory reminds me of Zynga and FarmVille...

@Equinox Key word is "marketed". You can believe whatever you want about whichever franchise (personally, I believe that James Bond is suited for kids though the marketing would label it the opposite). If you wanted to bring up a video game series that does not market to kids and is popular, then you could easily bring up GTA (Im sure you have some key words about that series as well).

@Equinox I don't agree that it's not appealing to older gamers or more hardcore gamers. It's a perfectly fine game. It's just only perfectly fine.

If it weren't on every platform and free to play from the start, it wouldn't be a fraction of as popular as it is. Also, I really dread the idea that the success of Fortnite is going to push more and more companies toward this free to play, pay to have goodies, model of game design...

@Matthew010 nobody forces you to click, read, and post on this site or any others. Why complain?

and this blows my mind. The battle royale fad is going to last a few years, so we might as well just accept it. I am not a big shooter fan anymore, but I play a couple hours of this each week since its switch release. Other then playing with friends, I don’t see the lasting appeal and I doubt I’ll be playing this in a year like some.

@quinnyboy58 It's no wonder companies like Ubisoft are outright stating they're going to move in that direction... Not seeing that interest in those games is growing and waning. Previously it was LoL, then World of Tanks, now Fortnite... In 5 years Fortnite may fall off the radar in favor of something new. Although this one is made by industry veterans rather than a bunch of lucky amateurs.

@Heavyarms55 I wouldn't worry too much honestly. Companies have seemed to settle more and more about paid transactions, with only the greediest of companies and series still trying. I don't think we'll have a Shadow of War situation just because of Fortnite.

It seems that companies have only gathered one thing about Fortnites success... Battle Royale modes guarentee money. Gaming executives are pretty damn dumb haha.

@ieatdragonz I don't know, free to play has been spreading like a cancer throughout the industry for years thanks to phone games. Now that there has been a major success like this on PC and consoles too, it seems very likely that other people are gonna try and push that model.

@Equinox the building in fortnite is no where near even minutely close to being on par with MC. In fortnite you don’t build for astetics like you do in minecraft you build out of necessity. Then the end of the match it’s all destroyed. I used to be heavily into MC and i see nothing in fortnite that would make you draw the conclusion that they are mostly old MC players playing fortnite. Shooters have always been one of the more popular genres, especially amongst casuals. The players came from PUBG, Overwatch and other shooters, not MC

@Switchcraft

Well this is awkward. Cliffy B left epic a little ago and has recently had to shut down his new studio because their first games was big old steamy pile of poop.

@Heavyarms55 We'll see. I have been called a hopeless optimist before, but its just how I think. You can also quote a game like Overwatch, a pc and console sensation, as a potential kindle to the fire. In reality, the opposite proved to be true, a lot of games decided cosmetics instead of pay 2 win was superior. I have seen valid criticism to even that model, imo, its harmless.

Plus, free to play is not a death sentence of gameplay no more. Best example is Warframe. Like I've said before, I dont think a Shadow of War (a pretty fun game considering...) situation will happen for a long while. Hell, they even removed lootboxes in that case. Again, we will have to wait and see. Developments are happeneing every other month.

Yay, look at all the eggs we've got in this one basket!

Let's see if they have as many or more eggs in 2-5 years time, and perhaps a couple more baskets....

I do still enjoy the odd game, it’s fun, but I feel it’s overrated. I’ve got no idea why anyone would spend money on purely superficial things like skins but to each their own. If anyone here has done i’d be very interested to know why you decided to

@EightBitMan should’ve played gears 3, insanely good split-screen online multiplayer. I agree with your point after 3, though x

Fortnite BR: IT PRINTS MONEY!

I find myself popping on every few nights for a match and end up playing for hours, this game really is addictive, I understand that some people just aren't into online games but you have to give the game and Epic credit for making a game that is as well supported and fun as this one. Even when the hype dies down there will always be a sizable player base, I can't imagine ever having trouble finding a match.

@Matthew010 If you don’t care then don’t comment. 😉

North Carolina: At least we have Epic Games.

PUBG gonna try to sue again now?

So basically it’s one of the biggest games out & a world wide phenomenon...so why were so many Nintendo fans complaining about it being on Switch? So much negative comments & apathy. Wether you like the game or not, you should want something this big on Switch. It would say a lot (negatively) about your platform of choice if something this big skipped over you.

Why did Paragon have to die though?

I really don't understand why this is such a popular game though. I'm not sure I really get the appeal. It's certainly decent enough but there's nothing truly amazing about it. I'm also not sure how it's pulling in that kind of money. I can see it being popular, but not that popular. When I look at Epic's catalog, it's not even the best online-only shooter Epic has made, yet it's the most profitable.

@Matthew010 I do sometimes disagree with the content selected for NL, but in the case of Epic, it's the company behind one of the most downloaded games on Switch right now, and the company behind the engine supporting a large number of the games from both indies and majors alike on Switch (even Nintendo itself I believe has used it for a project or two.) Valve would not be relevant, but Epic is no less relevant than Square-Enix or Atlus.

@SmaggTheSmug The trouble with everyone chasing that model is it seems like it only works in a winner-take-all format. It's like Youtube. Whoever goes viral first and biggest gets most of the pie, and everything else was a waste of money. With only a few players in the "big budget F2P" arena right now everyone gets something and only #1 wins. If everyone jumps in, many projects start losing big money while #1 wins.

Fortnite is a gold mine in more ways than one. Almost every single boy pediatric patient I see plays Fortnite, so when their dentist can talk with them about their favorite drop spot or emote, they go wild. Love it!!

@WreckItRyan I do suppose this has become a fad for kids. I tend not to associate online shooters as "for kids" in my mind.....you know internet phenomenons hit adults in disturbing ways, but the effect it's having with viral anything homogenizing all kids to all like the same thing all at the same time....it's creepy in all the worst ways. Maybe that's why I don't get the game...it's geared toward the worst aspects of the child mind.

Can you invest a bit in improving gyro controls? Thanks.

@NEStalgia It's not "the best" in any particular category, but everything together contributes to it's success. It's a fun game, the devs do frequent updates, it's available on practically everything with cross-play, and it's truly free to play with the only IAPs being cosmetics.

Get ready for more and more games to go this route after this success. Sorry, maybe I’m too old, but I will only play games that.I pay for once and may have (large content) DLC.

@julzshred Ouch! Haha, I didn’t know that.