Fortnite is one of the biggest games in the world – but it seems as though many are interested to see if it’ll still be around next year. Well, we have a pretty clear answer for you… no, Fortnite is not shutting down in 2023.
That’s because Fortnite is one of the biggest and most popular games on the planet ever since it launched in July 2017. According to Playercounter, there are nearly 3,000,000 players live at the time of writing, with most of these being based in the United States.
It hasn’t always been smooth sailing for Epic Games. In August 2020, Fortnite was removed from the App Store over disagreements with commission percentages. However, mobile users on iOS and Android can currently play the game via Nvidia’s GeForce Now service, as reported in Tech Crunch.
It’s also worth noting that Epic did shut down Fortnite servers in China in November 2022, as per The Verge, as ‘the test’ of the game had ‘come to an end’. Epic did not provide any other additional information about the decision.
How much has Fortnite made?
To give you an idea of just how much Epic Games has made from Fortnite since its launch, it made $5.5 billion in 2018 and $3.7 billion in 2019. New York Times reporter Erin Griffith tweeted in May 2021 that Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney said Fortnite had made $5.1 billion in gross revenue in 2020.
We will need to wait for an earnings call to get a sense of how much the game has made to date.
How does a free to play game make money, I hear you ask? That comes down to in-game purchases, such as skins, which are bought by purchasing an in-game currency called V-Bucks. Players can also buy battle passes and more, which unlocks various in game items.
Fortnite operates a seasonal mode, with new seasons added as time progresses. When this happens, there are usually temporary pauses in the game’s servers. These can be tracked here on the Fortnite Server Status Twitter. These do not last long and are usually only for a couple of hours. There is plenty of warning when this happens.
So, at the time of writing, we can’t see Fortnite going anywhere yet.
