Who Created Fortnite?

Tim Sweeney was fascinated by computers from a very young age. That’s why in his late teens, his father, who worked for the Defense Mapping Agency, gave him an IBM PC, the IBM Personal Computer AT, to be specific. Its introductory price was approximately $6,000. It more than paid off in the long run, though, because it helped Sweeney establish Potomac Computer Systems, a consulting business which he eventually sold a game called ZZT through. Selling the game to those with the means to play it brought him around $100 a day, which inspired him to become a game developer. He renamed Potomac Computer Systems to Epic MegaGames. The company became Tim’s full-time focus, and he even missed out on his degree by one credit because of it. Perhaps that was a scary thought at the time, but knowing what we know today, Tim made the right choice.

One of Sweeney’s bigger projects was developing the Unreal Engine, which he made for the 1998 first-person shooter Unreal. The success of that game, selling 1.2 million units by 2002, meant that the company could relocate to North Carolina, where its HQ remains today. Its name was changed to Epic Games, and the rest is history. Today, Tim boasts a net worth of approximately $10 billion.

In 2012, Epic Games were going through a shift where they realized the way that the industry was going, and they were trying to adapt to stay a part of things. At the time, the company was valued at $825 million. In July of 2018, when Fortnite was approaching its first birthday, it was valued at $4.5 billion. In the summer of 2020, Epic’s post-money equity valuation was $17.3 billion. This is largely due to Fortnite and, predominantly, the game's battle royale mode.

Fortnite’s success brought Epic more investment. In 2017, the same year that the game came out, Epic Games was selected to be a part of the Disney Accelerator program. Earlier this year, Sony invested $250 million in the company.

Epic Games have also made some unprecedented moves in gaming with the leverage that Fortnite gave it. The company convinced Sony to be more lenient in its stance on cross-platform play, which is now becoming standard as we move into next-gen gaming. Fortnite being free also meant that any battle royales that came after it that wanted to be competitive had to have the same price point or lack thereof. As a result, Call of Duty’s Warzone mode is free. Fortnite and Epic are to thank for that mindset.

Of course, your game being free means that you’re taking a hit on revenue upfront. But Fortnite’s model set trends and made an impact like no-one could have imagined.

Although Epic Games didn’t invent the battle pass system, they certainly popularized it. In the early to mid-2010s, loot boxes continued to receive criticism for encouraging gambling amongst younger players, paying for something they may or may not get. The FIFA series gets criticized for the very same thing to this day, with its pack openings actually being defined as gambling in some areas.

The battle pass system serves as an alternative to that. Players could be involved in microtransactions but see everything they could potentially get upfront, with how much of it they receive dependent on how much they played the game. The first instance of this was in Dota 2, but Fortnite really took it and ran with it. Video game analyst Michael Pachter estimated that when season three of Fortnite became available, Epic games sold more than 5 million, totaling over $50 million in revenue in a single day. In the following months, Fortnite was likely making Epic hundreds of millions of dollars monthly, all from its battle pass.

Since then, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare, Clash Of Clans, and more titans in the gaming industry have all utilized battle passes.

Outside of Fortnite, Tim Sweeney and Epic Games have continued to make big moves in the industry. Of course, in May of 2019, Epic acquired Psyonix, which meant that they took control of Rocket League, which had a big resurgence last year. It’ll be interesting to see where the game goes in 2021.

Outside of work on specific games, you might remember that last year, before the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X were out, something that got gamers excited was Epic Games’ initial demonstration of Unreal Engine 5. They showcased the engine with Lumen In The Land Of Nanite, and it was mind-blowing to see what games could look like in the next few years. One of its major features is Nanite, which allows for high-detailed photographic source material to be imported into games by developers. In laymen’s, that means that developers who use the engine can make detailed games with a lot less work in a lot less time in the future. There will potentially be tens of billions of polygons on a single screen at one time in 4k resolution, which is unimaginably incredible.

Unreal Engine 5 is expected to launch later this year, with Fortnite being used as a testbed for it. This, in addition to the recent news of Epic Games’ acquisition of Hypersense, should clearly show that it plans to shake up the industry and be a pivotal moment for next-gen gaming. We can’t wait to see how things play out.