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Epic Games has come out publicly with data about its viewership numbers, the pay it provides to creators, and the size of the player base. It’s the first time the company has done so, and the public had to guess those numbers previously.
There are plenty of reasons for the company behind Fortnite to celebrate, as the numbers are indicative of a strong and growing market. In this article, we’ll dive into that data and try to explain how the eSports entertainment market is shaping up.
The Numbers
Epic Games stated that it would pay creators $324 million in 2024. At this point, there are 70,000 individual creators, which is three times as many as in previous years. The creators have published more than 198,000 individual islands. Out of those, at least 60,000 are actually used on any given day.
It’s also interesting to observe that about 70 percent of all players engage with Epic Games as both creators and players. The number of players who play as creators has increased by 15 percent. Players spend five percent more time playing Epic Game releases than in 2023.
Diving into Details
When measuring a period from March to December, creators have been paid 11 percent more than the year before. In 2023, only 24,000 players engaged as creators, which shows a clear boost in the interactive game features. The number of new players varies by month and mostly by season, but in general, there’s a clear rise in Fortnite fandom.
In 2024, players spent 5.23 billion hours playing games made by creators. That’s about one-third of all time spent playing Fortnite. The company also points out that a big chunk of those hours are spent playing games that include combat modes. Social roleplay, party games, deathruns, and horror are genres growing the fastest.
An Increased Interest in eSports
eSports has proven to have a wide base of fans and players, and Fortnite is one of the most popular games. Professional Fortnite players have found the backing of large-scale sponsors and are treated as stars among eSports fans.
Fortnite has also purchased the rights to numerous popular IPs and, therefore, enabled its users to create innovative experiences and games. These include all The LEGO Group, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and Fall Guys assets.
Betting Market
Competitive Fortnite games have also become a huge part of the crypto eSports betting market. Cryptocurrencies and online betting are a good match since cryptos allow for fast and safe transfers and provide a mechanism for micro-transactions.
Fortnite is a fast-paced and creative game that provides countless outcomes on which the players can place bets. By using blockchain-based currencies to make these payments, the players can be certain that they’ll be paid out as soon as they win. Using cryptos to make such wagers also provides greater accessibility for fans from all over the world.
New Devices and Greater Immersion
Since user-created games are a third of all game hours for Fortnite, Epic Games has also focused on new devices and technology to make this experience more immersive and engaging. 2024 witnessed the launch of the First Person Camera device, as well as Input Triggers, Proximity chat, Persistence, and the use of Custom NPCs.
Alongside these new features, Fortnite has started sharing its data analytics with the creators in order to help them better understand their audience. It also created Creator Profiles to help players find all of the relevant islands in one place and Favorite a Creator, which helps build up an audience as a creator. Epic Games hasn’t issued any data on how many players use those tools, yet.
Plans for the Future
It’s not always easy to predict trends in eSports, but with the steady growth Epic Games has shown and rising creator funds, chances are Fortnite will continue to introduce new features in 2025. These will be especially focused on players who are also creators and building a community among creators and their fans.
The first innovation the company has announced for 2025 will be an improved Fortnite creator roadmap, which will give creators a sneak peek into features to be introduced throughout the year. The biggest of these is expected to be moving Scene Graph into beta testing.
To Sum Up
Epic Games, the company behind Fortnite, revealed the size of its creator fund for 2024. It’s over $350 million for over 70,000 different creators. This shows that the number of creators has tripled in the past year and that content made by the players themselves accounts for one-third of the overall playtime.
Following and betting on eSports have been a growing trend, especially with the use of cryptos to make wagers, and Epic Games will soon introduce new tools, gadgets, and features to expand further.
