Fortnite Rakes in Most Annual Revenue of Any Game in History

Woah. Neilsen’s SuperData estimates how much games make each year as a way to rank the titles and shed light on the success of games. Revenue earned is often something that game developers and publishers don’t share. According to the Nielsen data, Fortnite raked in a massive $2.4 billion in 2018 reports Deadline.

That would give the incredibly popular game the record for most annual revenue of any game in history. Part of the success of the game was its launch on PC, console devices, and mobile giving it a massive reach. Epic Games fed the momentum with constant updates with new modes, weapons, and environments.

Fortnite also made some excellent decisions in pulling money out of wallets with things like its battle pass and in-game purchases. Games like Dota 2 have sold battle passes in the past, but Fortnite made them a core part of its monetization strategy, with 34% of U.S. Fortnite players buying them regularly, SuperData wrote.

Free-to-Play certainly doesn’t mean that developers and publishers aren’t earning money. Games that fall into that free-to-play category accounted for 80% of all digital game revenue. Overall revenue in the segment reached $87.7 billion in 2018.