FORTNITE FRENZY.

• Author: Wanbaugh, Taylor
• Position: NC TREND: Gaming - Movie review

AN INTERNATIONAL GAMING PHENOMENON. FORTNITE BATTLE ROYALE BY CARY-BASED EPIC GAMES HAS BECOME ONE OF THE MOST SUCCESSFUL FREE-TO-PLAY VIDEO GAMES OF ALL TIME.

I'm sitting next to my 14-year-old brother, Zach, in the disarray of a messy teen's bedroom, staring at his giant PC screen. As he logs into Fortnite Battle Royale, he explains the premise of the wildly popular video game produced by Cary-based Epic Games. "It's like The Hunger Games," he says. "It's 100 people dropping into an arena, and you have to find weapons and kill everyone else until you are the last one standing."

Zach's character, decked out in fancy designer fatigues, boards a flying bus with the other players. He scopes out a good spot to land in the game's arena, which is a giant island. Finding the right site is key to a strong start.

"There's like four or five really good locations where people go," Zach explains. "That's where you go to get weapons so you can kill a bunch of people." Once he lands, Zach runs to a nearby shack where he finds weapons and ammo. He's grabbing up as much loot as he can--until he's ambushed.

"Ugh! I got shot! Now I'm dead."

He shrugs; it doesn't deter him. He simply enters into a new game, waiting for the other 99 players to join. And so the cycle starts again.

Fortnite has become wildly popular since its release last July after six years of development. More than 45 million people had downloaded the game through January, a company spokesman says. Millions more have joined since, as Fortnite has sparked stories by the CBS Sunday Morning show, The New York Times and Rolling Stone magazine. The game is the most successful free-toplay console game of all time, reporting 3.4 million concurrent players (number of users playing at the same time) in February, according to game-industry research company SuperData Research. Fortnite has become the most-watched game on live-streaming video platform Twitch and YouTube Gaming.

It appears to be a home run for Epic Games, which declined interview requests and hasn't provided many details to the press. Although the game is free, the privately held company makes money by selling cosmetic items such as character skins, dance moves and emotes (theatrical character reactions.) In gamerlingo, this is known as a "freemium" model. The game generated $223 million in March alone, 73% more than in February, according to various press reports. Fortnite was the highest grossing game worldwide for console and No. 5...