Representatives from Epic and EA Games have been appearing in front of a Commons committee here in the U.K. and have already brought the lols with EA suggesting that loot boxes are actually ‘surprise mechanics’. Epic Games clearly decided EA wasn’t going to get all the good headlines by, amazingly, suggesting they don’t make any money from Fortnite.
“It’s always been our effort and intent to create a fun, fair, flexible, engaging and generous form of interactive entertainment. A statement that suggests it’s some sort of nefarious attempt to extract short-term profit is a mischaracterisation,” said Epic’s general counsel, Canon Pence.
Epic made $2.4bn from Fortnite during 2018, the most annual revenue of any game in history.
“I don’t think it’s accurate to define Epic as making money from people playing the game,” stated Canon Pence.
Well that’s interesting. Fortnite doesn’t make any profit? So they didn’t make $2.4bn? If that is true where the $100,000,000 the promised for prize funds for the game coming from? Someone is clearly fibbing and either it’s Epic’s accountants or their representative giving official statements to our government.
Fortunately, just for once, our MPs were on the ball and weren’t impressed by Epic’s answers, “You’re not a charity,” responded committee chair Damian Collins, Conservative MP for Folkestone and Hythe.
You could argue that Cannon Pence is technically correct, just playing the game doesn’t make Epic any cash, it’s the micro-transactions and season passes that bring in the cash. That said, the game is packed full of promotions, John Wick, the NFL, and Marshmello have all had in-game events and each of those will have been paid for by the respective company. On balance I think we can say that one way or another just playing Fortnite earns Epic lots of cash, if not through micro transactions then via the in-game adverts and events.
Epic went on to say that they don’t know how long people play Fortnite for or the average revenue they generate. Damian was having none of it, “This is a game which makes money out of people playing it and this sort of basic information is something that will be gathered and analysed all the time, so I don’t believe that you don’t know it.”
Labour MP Ian Lucas asked why the company does not collect the date of birth of each player, “You don’t think it’s necessary to abide by data regulations by establishing the age of the people who play your game?” Lucas asked.
“We don’t,” replied Pence. He later backtracked and suggested he did not say that, but the records confirmed he did.
Oops.
Really concerning evidence from @EpicGames to our @commonscms this afternoon. No age verification system. No automated system to identify potential grooming of children on the chat rooms. No acceptance of any responsibility to have safeguarding measures in place.
— Jo Stevens (@JoStevensLabour) June 19, 2019
Source: The Guardian
MrYd
Are you surprised? If you’re making $2.4b a year from something, you can afford accountants to magically turn that into no profit.
The more worrying bit is the age thing. First it’s hand over all your personal info to look at porn, then it’ll be having to prove you’re old enough to do anything online. Epic asking “Are you old enough to play Fortnite?” isn’t going to do much. Anyone not old enough (it’s rated 12 isn’t it?) is just going to say “Yes”. It’s online, so there’s not even any need for 2 kids to dress up in a long coat.
And shouldn’t it be Sony or MS checking that anyway? They’re the ones you get the game from (unless you get it from Epic on PC).
I can see some MPs trying to expand the porn age thing (which has worked so well) to cover pretty much everything with any sort of age limit. So anything currently classed as only for ages 12 and over. And there’s probably almost as many people playing Fortnite, for some strange reason, as there are looking at porn.
Dominic Leighton
For once MPs doing something vaguely useful.
ron_mcphatty
Hah yeah. They should all be made to do something useful from time to time!
Tony Cawley
I don’t really think this is a fair article to be honest.
What they said was “I don’t think it’s accurate to define Epic as making money from people playing the game,”
They don’t say they don’t make a profit from the game, they’re saying it’s not fair to characterise the studio by that alone. They’re talking about how you define Epic, not whether or not they make money.
Tuffcub
Epic made about $3bn in 2018, 2.4bn of that came from Fortnite, at least 80% of their profit is from their game.
So yes, they are, it is by far their biggest product.
Tony Cawley
You’re completely missing the point. Neither they nor I stated they don’t make money from it. That is not what is being said at all.
Tuffcub
No they said they could not be defined by it.
I say 80% of your profit from one thing defines you.
What do Walkers make? Crisps!
Wrong, they make all sorts of snacks not just crisps, but they are defined by their biggest selling product. Epic are defined by theirs, Fortnite.
Tony Cawley
That’s right, Epic are defined by Fortnite. That’s the point.
They didn’t anywhere state they don’t make any money.
ico
My son plays fortnite and we limit his time each day (up to one hour) and from memory since starting to play about 12m ago we only let him buy the battle pass once. Since then he’s been able to buy the next pass from credits earned in game.
Yes he whinges when we don’t let him use our or his money for the latest John Wick skin but then he gets over it. There’s an age rating on this game and it’s not hard to find what it is. Playing younger? PARENTS should know better, playing around 12 plus? Parents should, in most (most) cases be able to control time and any spending. Playing over 18? Do what you like! It’s presumably your money.
I don’t even like or play the game but Epic are making a ton of money from tapping into something at the right time. Good luck to em!
TSBonyman
I believe they are telling the truth, from what i know about Fortnite it’s the parents who pay for everything.