I feel like Fortnite's success is the first major success in Epic's master plan -- with that 5% rake on the Unreal Engine license they've got a back door into the sales data for all their licensees. (And because of the openness of their program, they have a lot more to peek into and, assumably, fewer contractual obligations to them).
Can't help but wonder if they looked at PUBG's figures and saw their market research done for them? I was looking forward to Fortnite as the Garry's-Mod-meets-Left-for-Dead and its sudden emphasis on Battle Royale was a little disappointing.
Battle Royale wasn't in their plan though. They were making the PvE version ("Save the World") for a while (years) and had just released a beta version you could buy over the summer.
I believe the story goes that just a couple of devs went off and made the Battle Royale version to see if it would be fun to play.
Can't help but wonder if they looked at PUBG's figures and saw their market research done for them? I was looking forward to Fortnite as the Garry's-Mod-meets-Left-for-Dead and its sudden emphasis on Battle Royale was a little disappointing.