If there was any suggestion that Fortnite hadn't become a cultural phenomenon that transcends gaming altogether, the player numbers from August should be convince you. The battle royale title reached new heights during the month, where 78.3 million people played the game around the world. Total downloads for the game have reached 125 million, showing an impressive amount of player retention, and a total rise of near 40 million since the release of the Android version of the game.
The battle royale genre has been gradually evolving over the past few years. What arguably began with DayZ, soon became H1z1, then dedicated battle royale modes in games like H1Z1 and Ark: Survival Evolved started gaining traction and player bases of their own. PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds brought the genre into the limelight though and showed that millions of people could enjoy that type of game if given the chance. Fortnite refined it further and made it accessible to children, a major component in its current dominance in the industry.
Fortnite has garnered some controversy for this, including its use of loot box mechanics and the fact that to install it you have to sideload an APK for Epic's own launcher, rather than using the Google Play store. Still, with some 23 million players joining the beta of that mobile release and now an additional 40 million joining the game proper post official release, it's clear that Fortnite is the most popular game in the world right now by quite some margin.
Epic is reportedly earning hundreds of millions of dollars a month from the game, despite it being an entirely free to play title. As we enter into Season 6 of the game's ever-evolving map, story, and competitive scene, it seems likely to only get bigger.
