How Fortnite makes money
Gamer Brendan Hickey paid $230 to eat popcorn and swing a pickaxe, and he’d do it again for Fortnite, finds Eli Blumenthal.
For Brendan Hickey, buying custom features for his character in the online game was about standing out. He can now do the electro shuffle. Eat popcorn, dribble a basketball or swing a ‘‘plunja’’ pickaxe. Does any of this help the 22-year-old jump to the next level, get more lives or give him an advantage in fighting his opponents in one of the world’s most popular online games? Nope.
The US$140 to US$160 (NZ$230) he estimates shelling out on Fortnite purchases since October simply sets him apart when he’s in the game and helps him bond with friends who also play the online contest.
‘‘It’s the first time we’ve all been excited to get on and play Xbox together,’’ said Hickey, a recent University of Connecticut graduate who says his friends are getting ready to disperse around the country. ‘‘It’s the same as going out and getting, like, a beer or getting a bite to eat with the guys.’’
He has company. Its 125 million players have made Fortnite the highest-grossing free-to-play game. Everyone from athletes and celebrities to school-age kids drop onto the game’s brightly coloured maps each day, battling to outlast each match’s 99 other opponents. Many spend money to customise their characters.
In May, the game generated US$318m revenue for North Carolina-based Epic Games, according to SuperData Research, beating out other stalwart console games such as Electronic Arts’ FIFA 18 and Activision’s Call of Duty: WWII, which charge for downloads and in-game purchases. That monthly take topped Pokemon Go at its peak. Between January and May, Fortnite pulled in more than US$1 billion, the research firm estimates.
That’s because when gamers fire up the game, they are bringing their real-world wallets with them. Buying skins or cosmetics, these outfits and get-ups let players show their personality and allegiance with friends and online competitors. In a study of 1000 Fortnite players by LendEDU, nearly 69 per cent made in-game purchases, averaging US$84.67 each.
‘‘It’s almost like younger players are treating
Fortnite skins like action figures,’’ said Carter Rogers, a principal analyst at SuperData.
‘‘It has really become a part of the culture to have the latest skin, the latest fashion.’’
The cash windfall from players buying custom outfits like a basketball jersey or a hip dance move is the most successful example of a new trend in online gaming. In the past, gaming publishers have sold in-game features, sales that allowed players to reach higher levels or unlock characters. But these shortcuts brought controversy.
Last year’s Star Wars: Battlefront II game from Electronic Arts drew the anger of gamers for a system that gave incentives for paying to unlock characters like Darth Vader or Luke Skywalker over unlocking them more naturally through the game’s progression.
With Fortnite, players don’t get better at vanquishing their opponents by acquiring a new outfit or getting better weapons, something that has only heightened the allure of the game.
It’s already on the way to a national obsession, particularly with teens and tweens. The popularity of Fortnite has caused schools and teachers to complain students are sneaking it in class and playing on their phones. Epic Games added a warning to the game’s loading screen cautioning students to set the screens aside.
Asher Kim, a 14-year-old who lives in Georgia, estimates he plays roughly 36 hours a week ‘‘unless I’m grounded’’.
What’s the attraction? It’s addictive, competitive, and ‘‘like The Hunger Games except with guns’’.
Dance moves or ‘‘emotes’’ that players can buy, some of which are copied from rap artists, have become such a hit they’re showing up during major sporting events. At Tuesday’s MLB All-Star Game, several players spoke of their love of the video game, with a Fox promo showing a few reenacting some of their favourite dances. During last Sunday’s World Cup Final between France and Croatia, France’s Antoine Griezmann celebrated his goal by doing the ‘‘Take the L’’ dance, a move that has been popularised by Fortnite.
For some players, buying a skin is their way to show appreciation to Epic Games for making the game free.
Shana Wilcox, who posts her Fortnite exploits on YouTube under the username SharkysHood, has spent only US$30 on the game. The 33-year-old from Jacksonville, Florida, was never a big player of shooting games, yet has enjoyed playing
Fortnite.
She has bought only one skin, an Easter bunny suit known as the Bunny Brawler, in part because it was ‘‘really cute’’ and in part from the enjoyment the game has given her. ‘‘I have so much fun playing, that it was like ‘OK, the least I can do is buy a skin that I really, really want’.’’
To frequent players of the game, having a skin can also be seen as a virtual sign that you are not a rookie, or ‘‘noob’’ in the game.
Preston William Otterson, a 24-year-old radio host from Lakeville, Minnesota, has been playing
Fortnite for about six months, lured into the game by its free aspect. At first, he didn’t spend anything. But after getting called out online by his friends for being a ‘‘no skin’’ – an insult to players who are just using the game’s free, standard avatars – he decided to put some money into it.
‘‘I have spent probably around $80, which is more than I’ve ever spent on a video game,’’ Otterson says, spending the cash to buy outfits, dances and axes. These can cost $5 for an entrylevel bundle to $20 for a skin.
And given the enjoyment they’ve got from the game, players say buying a feature like wings or a glider is worth it. ‘‘I pay $15 a month for Netflix, $10 a month for Hulu and I play more Fortnite than I do either Netflix or Hulu,’’ says Hickey, who sometimes sports the skin of a plant-based supervillain named Flytrap. Once he rationalised it like that, it ‘‘wasn’t too much money to spend’’.
Cody Sipe, a special investigator for a company that does background checks for the government,
‘‘It has really become a part of the culture to have the latest skin, the latest fashion.’’ Carter Rogers, principal analyst at SuperData
uses Fortnite to connect with his younger brothers.
From Chesapeake, Virginia, Sipe, 24, and his brothers are scattered across the US, one of whom is in military training in California, and the other about to go off to college in Florida.
‘‘We’re all guys, we don’t really call each other on the phone very often,’’ Sipe says. ‘‘We bond over either being on the same team or joking about who has the worst stats [in the game] . . . who has the cooler-looking outfits and stuff like that.’’
Like other online games, players can chat and communicate using a headset plugged into their controllers. Though not all sessions are talkative.
‘‘Sometimes we’ll sit on there for an hour and only share, like, 10 words because we are busy playing a game,’’ Sipe says.
As for his purchases, Sipe says he’ll drop a few bucks on a skin or outfit if he thinks it looks cool. One of his favourites: as part of a US$5 bundle, he bought a Wingman skin, a Top Gun-like outfit similar to the jumpsuit sported by Tom Cruise in the popular 1986 movie.
‘‘I had a moment of weakness where I was like ‘Hell yeah, I want to look like Tom Cruise in Top
Gun’ so I bought it,’’ Sipe says with a laugh.