Fortnite Has Been Played Longer Than Humans Have Been On Earth

Forum 3 years ago

Fortnite Has Been Played Longer Than Humans Have Been On Earth

It's no question that Fortnite is the most popular video game of all time, but a new report shows that the cartoon battle royale has been played longer than human ancestry has been on the Earth. Fortnite Battle Royale skyrocketed in popularity after its launch in 2017, and over the past three years, it has remained one of the most concurrently viewed games across all streaming platforms.

Fortnite was not always as popular as it is now. In fact, some would argue that the game was a failure at launch. Fortnite launched on July 25, 2017, as a paid single-player experience called Save The World. The most popular game at that time was a battle royale titled PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds (PUBG) which had a more realistic feel similar to Call of Duty or Battlefield. Two months after Fortnite's release, Epic Games pivoted away from the story-based campaign mode and launched the free-to-play battle royale version of Fortnite. The unique building mechanics and cartoon graphics were enough to steal a large percentage of gamers away from PUBG, thrusting Fortnite into the spotlight.

The ever-changing nature of Fortnite has kept the game feeling fresh for its 350 million players, and a new report from GAME has revealed that Fortnite has been played for a cumulative total of 3.8 billion days. That translates into 10.4 million years which is almost twice the amount of time human ancestors have been on earth. Scientists believe that humans have been on Earth for 200,000 years while our ancestors have been around for 6 million years. This study shows that gamers have spent more time playing Fortnite than humans have existed. The hours played far surpass the hours watched on Twitch, but Fortnite has still garnered a whopping 1.28 million hours watched on Twitch alone. This equates to 147,214 cumulative years of watch time.

Other games listed on the report come nowhere close to the staggering numbers Fortnite has displayed. Of the top ten most-played online games, Fortnite is number one, followed by World of Warcraft that has just over half the amount of time Fortnite gamers have logged. The chart above shows how much time players have committed to the top ten games, and it clearly shows that Fortnite is dominating the gaming sphere. World of Warcraft falls short of the 6 million year mark making Fortnite the only game that currently has more playtime than humans have had on Earth.

There are a lot of factors that play into why Fortnite is so immensely popular. For one, the game is free to play and is available on all platforms. A huge contribution to the popularity of Fortnite, and to gaming as a whole, was when popular streamer Ninja played with world-famous rappers Drake and Travis Scott. Over the past two years, large companies from different genres of entertainment have fed off and encouraged the growing popularity of gaming, and a large number of these promotions have taken place within Fortnite. While the internet loves to claim that Fortnite is dying, the numbers say otherwise.