Epic Games might have had the greatest year in terms of sales for any video game developer. This was driven largely due to the immense popularity of Fortnite, as well as licensing out their video game engine, the Unreal Engine, to other companies for their own IP’s. The combined effort of these ventures has paid off for Epic, literally. According to a report by TechCrunch, the company has grossed $3 billion profit for 2018. Even for high level tech companies such as Microsoft, that is an absurd amount of money to make in the span of 12 months.
Keep in mind that Fortnite is a free-to-play game, which means that the profit Epic makes from it are all from in-game purchases. This is helped by the annual $10 Season Pass they push out for exclusive loot, and the constantly updated item shop for cosmetics. It’s also important to note that the shop is visited every single day, and players use real life money to accumulate V-Bucks so they can make those purchases. It also doesn’t hurt that Fortnite’s player base is easily one of the highest on the market, at one point sitting at over 200 million people.
Epic themselves hasn’t commented on the report, but with massive numbers like these, they don’t really have to say anything, as it speaks for itself. In addition, the company also received a flood of investments back in October, going all the way up to $1 billion, adding even more money for them to work with. On top of that, they also revealed the Epic Games Store this month, directly challenging the digital retail king, Steam. However, with exclusive titles such as The Walking Dead: The Final Season, and giving away game every two weeks next year, it might not be long until we see higher sales numbers for Epic Games as opposed to Valve.
Epic Games took a risk back in 2012 when they revealed Fortnite to the world as a co-op style based horde game. Six years later, the company is the undisputed champion of 2018, thanks to a few changes they made to the game, and capitalizing on the Battle Royale sensation. Combined with the addicting gameplay and the equally addicting skins players can unlock, this was a massive success for Epic Games, and they’re celebrating all the way to the bank.