15 Fantastic Fortnite Player Count Stats in 2023

Updated · Mar 06, 2023

Fortnite is not the first battle royale game, but it has become the most popular one. Epic Games developed it back in 2017, after PUBG’s commercial success became apparent. Unsurprisingly, given its free-to-play model and attractive artstyle, it quickly overtook the number one spot.

Even four years after its release, Fortnite’s player count is still the highest in the battle royale genre. Its availability on a multitude of platforms—including PC, consoles, and handheld devices—certainly helps.

But just how popular is Fortnite in 2022?

Read on to find out.

Fantastic Fortnite Facts (Editor’s Choice)

  • Epic developed Fortnite: Battle Royale in just two months.
  • More than 10 million players joined Fortnite in its first two weeks.
  • Fortnite generated $5.1 billion in revenue in 2020.
  • 15.3 million players logged in simultaneously to enjoy Fortnite’s Galactus event.
  • Fortnite boasts more than 350 million registered players in total.
  • 22.5 million gamers log in for a round of Fortnite daily.
  • Fortnite lovers spend a combined 3.3 billion hours in-game a month.
  • PlayStation users generate nearly half of the game’s revenue.

Some Basic Fortnite Info to Start

You probably already know a lot about Epic’s best game yet, but we’re willing to bet you don’t know everything just yet.

For instance, when did Fortnite get popular?

Turns out it was a tiny bit after its original release, when PvP came into play.

Let’s go over the basics before we dive deep into the numbers.

1. Fortnite launched in September 2017.

(Source: Polygon)

Or, to be precise, its battle royale game mode did.

Epic Games released the original player-versus-environment mode, called Save the World, on July 25th, 2017. By that point, the game had been in the works for at least 6 years.

The devs certainly took their time!

2. It took Epic Games just two months to develop Fortnite: Battle Royale.

(Source: PC Gamer)

Epic seems to be a company of extremes!

Of course, the game already had a great foundation, not to mention a pretty good Fortnite player base, too. Epic’s main challenge was just to come up with engaging PvP combat—and quickly, as Tencent’s PUBG was already hoarding all the market’s attention.

At the time, a part of Epic’s team was busy working on a sequel to the arena shooter Unreal Tournament. So, the company just moved all of those developers over to Fortnite’s team and got the game ready for release in two months’ time!

3. Fortnite wasn’t meant to be a battle royale game.

(Source: Eurogamer)

The initial idea was for Fortnite to be a mix between Minecraft and Terraria. The last-man-standing mode was conceived far later in the development cycle, but it quickly became the priority.

Without it, Fortnite’s live player count would likely look vastly different. And it probably wouldn’t be as fun to stream your gameplay, either.

4. Fortnite attracted more than 10 million players in its first two weeks.

(Source: PC Gamer)

Why did Fortnite get so popular?

One of the main reasons was its free-to-play business model.

Epic originally intended to release the battle royale as an optional PvP mode behind Fortnite’s $40 paywall. The decision to release it for free came about barely two weeks before launch.

Hopefully, whoever came up with such a brilliant idea got a raise—and a big one at that.

Fortnite Player Base: Is It Still Going Strong?

We’ve all heard the rumors saying Fortnite is dying, but are they true?

How many players does Fortnite really have?

In this section, we’ll look at some raw data and discuss the demographics behind the world’s biggest battle royale.

5. The age of the average Fortnite player is likely below 20.

(Source: Statista)

The latest stats show that 62.7% of Fortnite players are 24 years old or younger. For comparison, those aged 25-34 make up only 22.5% of the game’s players, whereas less than 15% of Fortnite’s user base is 35 or older.

6. Fortnite’s player count totals more than 350 million.

(Source: Statista)

The game gained 100 million new players in just over a year, going from 250 million in March 2019 to 350 million in May 2020.

With growth like that, it’s likely that it’s surpassed 400 million registered users by now.

7. How many concurrent players does Fortnite have?

(Source: The Independent)

It depends. On most days, Fortnite’s live player count reaches around three million people. But during certain events, the number gets several times higher than that.

For example, when Travis Scott held a concert in-game, 12.3 million people tuned in simultaneously. But that wasn’t the biggest event yet—2020’s interactive Galactus event set a new record with 15.3 million concurrent Fortnite players.

8. Fortnite lost about 10% of its total daily active players when it was removed from the AppStore.

(Source: Forbes)

Epic became unhappy with Apple over its 30% AppStore revenue cut—and it decided to make its displeasure known. The gaming company made changes to the Fortnite app so it could bypass the AppStore payment system in August 2020.

In turn, Apple removed the game from its platform, which prompted Epic to sue the trillion-dollar tech company. Eventually, the judge ruled in favor of Apple on nine counts out of ten, thus ending the legal battle.

By that point, there were 116 million active Fortnite players using iOS devices, with more than 60% of those playing exclusively on Apple equipment. After the whole debacle, those 73 million had to either switch platforms or quit.

We love Fortnite as much as the next guy, but moving over from an iPhone to another powerful-enough device just for one game sounds quite expensive.

9. There are 22.5 million Fortnite daily players.

(Source: Eurogamer)

We know this for a fact thanks to certain court documents related to the Epic Games vs Apple lawsuit.

We also know that back in 2018, Fortnite’s monthly players equaled 78.3 million. And that as of June 2020, that number had gone up to 80.4 million.

In other words, the stats suggest that Fortnite is still going strong.

10. Apex Legends’ player count is no match for Fortnite.

(Source: VGR)

Remember how Fortnite’s live player count hovers around three million on most days?

Well, Apex Legends—EA’s take on the battle royale genre and one of Fortnite’s biggest competitors—has a peak daily player count of over 200,000 on Steam alone.

Estimates show that if we include non-Steam PC players as well as console users in the equation, the count is likely as high as one million players per day.

Pretty good, but still no match for Fortnite.

11. Epic Games takes the lead in the Fortnite vs Warzone player count battle.

(Source: VGR)

Data for Call of Duty: Warzone was tougher to get since none of the platforms that host it release exact numbers to the public.

However, PlayerCounter suggests that about 250,000 people enjoy Warzone, placing it behind the likes of Apex Legends and the once-king PUBG.

Fortnite Revenue Stats: A Lesson in Money-Making

We play video games to have fun, that much is obvious. But it’s called the “entertainment industry” for a reason—namely because games are meant to make money.

Luckily, the two are closely connected. The more fun a game is, the more popular and profitable it tends to be. And, boy, is Fortnite profitab–, uh, pardon, fun!

Even after all this time, Fortnite is still the most popular battle royale game on the planet. And we have the stats to prove it.

12. Fortnite made $5.1 billion in 2020.

(Source: The Verge)

The game’s success in terms of revenue has remained consistent over the past few years. For instance, in 2018, Fortnite, on the other hand, was responsible for 97.3% of Epic’s revenue that same year—talk about a cash cow!

For comparison, Epic’s other games (such as Rocket League and Battle Breakers) only brought in $8 million in revenue throughout 2018—which amounted to just 0.14% of the studio’s earnings in that period.

In fact, Epic Games’ net worth skyrocketed after Fortnite’s release. It went from less than $1 million all the way up to $28.7 billion in 2021.

13. PlayStation makes up for 46.8% of Fortnite’s sales.

(Source: Epic Games v Apple)

Considering the period from March 2018 to July 2020, almost half of Fortnite’s revenue came from player spending on PlayStation 4.

Microsoft Xbox One users were the second-biggest spenders, generating 27.5% of Fortnite’s total revenue.

Exact data is unavailable for the remaining platforms, but we do know that PC and Nintendo Switch players brought in a combined 18.7% of revenue.

14. The mobile market was never a big money-maker for Epic.

(Source: Epic Games v Apple)

Despite the popularity of Fortnite on iOS, Apple’s platform was responsible for just 7% of Epic’s revenue. Meaning that, in terms of Epic Games’ money-making platforms, Apple fell way behind PS, Xbox, PC, and Nintendo even before the whole lawsuit debacle.

Android came in last place, so Fortnite’s removal from the Google Play Store in 2020 likely didn’t hurt Epic’s bottom line too much.

15. Fortnite battle pass sales reached five million at the inauguration of Season 3.

(Source: GamesIndustry)

At $10 each, that amounts to $50 million in just one day.

Of course, it is possible to use V-Bucks (Fortnite’s virtual currency) to get yourself the battle pass. And since you can earn said V-Bucks through in-game activities, completely circumventing the use of real-life money, perhaps Epic’s profits were a touch lower after all.

You’d need to play a lot to earn that much, though!

Wrap Up

We admit that reading is not as fun as playing but, hopefully, our Fortnite player count guide gave you some insight into just how successful the game has been so far.

Next time you get into an argument with somebody who is adamant that Fortnite must be dying, you’ll show them—you now have all the numbers to back you up.

As for the future, it’s hard to accurately predict what the Fortnite player count might look like even a few months from now. Given its unabated growth so far, though, we wouldn’t be surprised if the numbers keep on rising.

And if Epic holds another in-game event or two, we might even witness new records.

Until then, have fun riding the battle bus!

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Nick Galov
Nick Galov

Unaware that life beyond the internet exists, Nick is poking servers and control panels, playing with WordPress add-ons, and helping people get the hosting that suits them.