UNREAL-LY GOOD
Who created Fortnite, what is Tim Sweeney’s net worth and how much money does Battle Royale make?
See how he went from making games at his parents' house to multi-billionaire CEO
FORTNITE is one of the biggest online games in the world with a staggering 650 million players registered at the end of 2023.
Here, we get to know Epic Games founder Tim Sweeney — the man behind the phenomenon.
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Who is Tim Sweeney and what is the story of Epic Games and Fortnite?
Tim Sweeney had been programming games since he was just 11, obsessed with the rapidly developing computing industry — and as of June 2024 has an estimated net worth of $5.7 billion (£4.5 billion), according to Forbes.
Epic Games wasn't born until 1991, when Sweeney, then a 21-year-old mechanical engineering student at the University of Maryland, released the company's first game, ZZT.
With a favourable reception from its few thousand dedicated fans, ZZT helped Sweeney establish a reputation for himself and his company, Epic, originally located at Sweeney's parent's house in Maryland, quickly grew into a booming business.
In 1998, Epic released the first-person shooter game Unreal, which ran using Sweeney's powerful new game development software: the Unreal Engine.
He realised that there was money in polishing the engine and selling it to other game developers, and Epic became best known for the Unreal Engine, which is used to power many big-name titles, including Fortnite.
Gears of War became one of the best-selling game series of all time, and the Unreal engine, currently in its fourth iteration, is the most successful game engine of all time.
Notable Unreal Engine games include Unreal Tournament, Tekken 7, Bioshock, Batman's Arkham series and the Final Fantasy VII remake.
Years later, after dominating the industry for so long, Sweeney and his Epic colleagues realised that the games industry was changing: free-to-play models were becoming more popular, and players were demanding constantly evolving games.
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So in 2012, a year after Fortnite was first announced, Sweeney teamed up with Chinese free-to-play gaming and app company Tencent.
The combination of Tencent's experience and Epic's vision made Fortnite the success it is today, with the free game making a fortune every month through small in-game purchases by players.
Epic is currently valued in the region of $32 billion (£25.3 billion) as of June 2024.
Who made Fortnite?
Fortnite was first teased by Epic Games back in 2011 at the Spike Video Game Awards, just three weeks after they initially came up with the idea.
If you follow the Epic chain of command to the top, you'll find some of the brightest minds in gaming, including CEO Tim Sweeney.
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It was a departure from their usual fare, which Epic fans will know was Unreal Tournament and Gears of War.
They initially described Fortnite as "a world where you explore, you scavenge, you build and ultimately you survive."
The game was developed to be released on the Unreal 4 game engine with an original release date of 2013.
In 2015, they let 50,000 players play the beta which enabled Epic to understand the pros and cons of the game and how to make it better.
The wasn't released until September 2017 — but by early 2018, it had become the biggest game on the planet.
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How much money does Fortnite make?
Fortnite is a global phenomenon and brings in an incredible amount of cash.
It made $6 billion (£4.72 billion) in 2022, more money than any game in history had managed over 12 months.
In 2023, the total revenue for the game was estimated at around $26 billion (£20 billion).
Its monthly revenue peaked in December 2017 at $372.2 million, with third-party analysis indicating it has declined 56 per cent since then.
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