The Genius of Fortnite's Business Strategy

I just appreciate the fact that Fortnite lets you pay for and buy the exact skin you want.

In most games you get a "crate" that you then have to pay $2.50 to "unlock". Half the time or more you get some crappy item no one wants or you already have. Even if you ignore the gambling aspect at best you are spending money on stuff you don't want for a small chance of something you might want - but are also likely to get it days, weeks or months after other more lucky people.

Meanwhile in Fortnite, sure they cost $8-$15 each but you can see it, you spend the money, and you get what you wanted, right then and get to use it.

Then from a business point of view they combine this with the limited time sale (buy it now or miss out, but the items always come back a week or two later to give you a second chance) and an unrelenting pile of new content so people want to buy more over time.

I rarely purchase games that are $50+.. I have spent about $120 on fortnite and feel good about it and thoroughly enjoy it. In PUBG which I purchased I spent literally only $5 to unlock two crates neither of which gave me anything remotely approaching interesting. I stopped bothering to spend anymore. I played PUBG a lot but never spent any more money on it.

It's a great success in my view.

As a side note since it also requires online servers like most games, it's likely to give them higher revenue over time to keep the servers running. A problem many up-front sale games run into unless they have a monthly subscription which is a tough business to get into and only a few games do that successfully (e.g. WoW).

I suspect that sales of expensive sneakers will take a hit while this Fortnite craze keeps going.

It's the same insecure teenagers that previously spent inordinate amounts on clothes and shoes that are now going to spend tons of money on Fortnite skins.