After a meteoric rise to popularity in 2018, Fortnite generated more than $5 billion in its first year for Epic Games, new financial documents reveal. The document, made public as part of Epic’s court battle with Apple over the latter’s App Store practices, shows that the game brought in more than $9 billion total for Epic in 2018 and 2019.
The document doesn’t break down how much Epic specifically profited from Fortnite, but the company reported more than $5.5 billion in profit from the two-year period.
In the document, the company predicted that it would have almost $3.6 billion in revenue for 2020. Epic doesn’t usually publicly provide financial statements, but CEO Tim Sweeney’s recent testimony indicates that it actually made much more: $5.1 billion.
Sweeney says Epic employs 3200 people, has offices around the world and (this might be new info?) made $5.1bn in gross revenue in 2020.
— erin griffith (@eringriffith) May 3, 2021
The revenue from Fortnite far outshone any other businesses that Epic ran at the time — “other games” (such as Rocket League, acquired by Epic in 2019) made $108 million in revenue in 2018 and 2019, and Epic’s engine brought in $221 million over the same span. Epic’s Game Store, launched at the end of 2018, brought in a total of $235 million between 2018 and 2019.
Update May 3rd, 5:12PM ET: Added Epic’s actual 2020 revenue provided by Tim Sweeney’s testimony.
https://www.theverge.com/2021/5/3/22417447/fortnite-revenue-9-billion-epic-games-apple-antitrust-case