Video games: Fortnite exceeds 250 million players and looks to its World Cup

The flagship game of 2018 continues to attract new players. The first World Cup "Fortnite", which begins in April, looks like a global event.

How far will Fortnite's success go ? Epic Games, the publisher of the flagship game of 2018, has announced to have exceeded the 250 million active players in the world, a figure that makes us dizzy. A few weeks before qualifying for the first World Cup Fortnite is indeed the king of the "battle royal", these games where a hundred players compete at the same time on a map that shrinks, until that there is only one survivor.

Figurehead of the "royal battle"

Launched in 2017, Fortnite, available on PC, consoles and mobile, has helped to popularize the genre of "battle royal". But the concept does not date from today. This format of clashes has been traced in wrestling wrestling by elimination for several decades. But it is the Japanese Battle Royale novel, released in 1999, which makes students compete in a dystopian world, which defined the framework. Adapted in manga, then in film, he especially inspired the series of Hunger Games .

>> From 5h to 7h, it's "Stand up friends" with Matthieu Noël on Europe 1. Find the replay of the show here

Fortnite has supplanted "PUBG". Become suddenly very popular, the "battle royale" have been logically aspired by the world of video games, first by small touches and then with a first phenomenon: PlayerUnknow's Battlegrounds , "PUBG" for the intimate. The principle: 100 players are parachuted on an island in underpants and must kill their opponents to be the last survivor, with the help of equipment and weapons. Launched in March 2017, "PUBG" was an immediate success, six months before the arrival of Fortnite Battle Royale .

Gradually, Fortnite has supplanted his elder in the hearts of "gamers". Free as "PUBG" (on the free-to-play model, there are integrated purchases to progress faster in the game), the game of Epic Games stands out for its super simple handling and cartoony graphics: extravagant weapons, colorful characters, textures "play dough", no blood and ... dance steps become cultural phenomena. Antoine Griezmann, big fan of Fortnite , had fun to reproduce after his goals.

An undeniable leader

Today, it is no exaggeration to say that Fortnite is the most popular game in the world. In one year, the number of players has been multiplied by six! To the point that this causes some problems for the servers: at the highest, 3.4 million players connected at the same time - a record, causing slowdowns on the game. By comparison, there are ten times more players on Fortnite than Fifa aficionados 19 . And interestingly, one in three Fortnite players is a player. A much higher than average female presence on this type of games.

Competition is on the line. This success is all the more impressive as the competition is every month a little stronger. By handing the battle royal fashionable, Fortnite has given ideas to all developers and he regularly launches new games of this kind, with varying degrees of success.

Last cardboard date: Apex Legends , launched in early February by the mastodon Electronic Arts, the publisher of FIFA . In just two months, he has already won 50 million players. It had taken Fortnite six months to make that step. But the "royal battle" was not so popular at the time. Epic Games Boss Tim Sweeney: "Since Apex Legends came out, we've won as many players on Fortnite as there are on Apex Legends , which is amazing," he said. he rejoiced with the site Venture Beat.

A highly anticipated World Cup

Fortnite can therefore look serenely before him and turn to the next stage of its development: e-sports, video game competitions. Its simplicity, its large number of players and its great popularity among "streamers" (players who broadcast their game live on the Internet) make it the ideal game for epic clashes, capable of attracting crowds. To have an order of magnitude, League of Legends , the game most played currently in competition, has between 100 and 120 million players, two times less than Fortnite .

The first Fortnite World Cup will take place this year and it looks like crazy. As in football, there will be qualifications, virtual, open to all, between April 13 and June 16. One million dollars will be allocated each week "and distributed globally among all eligible Fortnite players," said Epic Games. One hundred solo players and 50 duet teams will compete in the World Cup Finals in New York on July 26-28. Thirty million dollars will be put into play, at least 50,000 dollars per qualified player. The winner will pocket the trifle of ... three million euros!