Thanks to Kevin Kelly for pointing this out this excellent article on REDEF by Matthew Ball. It’s interesting to learn about what Epic Games is up to with Fortnite, but more than that in terms of how computer game and media business models are evolving – and what might be next.
Highly recommend.
Highlights:
- Fortnight is pulling in upwards of $300 million per month – but is completely free to use (it makes its money through optional, non-essential purchases like clothing for user characters)
- Fortnight is way more profitable per user than facebook or google
- It’s a huge success – but several other games have achieved similar – particularly in Asia. (for comparison: Candy Crush has earned $5bn, while The Avengers: Infinity War earned a bit more than $2bn worldwide.)
- Its success enabled total cross-platform availability – even Sony opened up to cross-platform play on Fortnight for PS4.
- “Fortnight likely represents the largest persistent media event in human history. As of today, the game has likely had more than six consecutive months with at least one million active users – all of whom are participating in a largely shared and consistent experience…”
- There are some notes about Epic’s open and always-iterating business model as a platform provider (providing resources for others to make games, rather than only making its own games)
- Some great discussion of The Metaverse – a shared virtual world (or interlinked worlds) that could be “the next version of the internet.”