Epic Reveals It Made $50 Million From One Set Of ‘Fortnite’ Skins

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Fortnite

Epic

As a private company, we don’t often get a look into Epic’s financials, and yet during its trial against Apple, that has changed in a big way. And one number caught my eye, as it’s one of the first full views into the performance of an individual pack of skins, showing just how absurdly profitable Epic, its microtransactions and its IP deals can be.

Spotted by Protocol’s Nick Statt, Epic revealed that it sold 3.3 million NFL-branded skins during their run in November and December. Those skins were 1,500 V-bucks each, about $15 if you’re not accounting for bundles, so that’s around $50 million from a single set of skins. That deal encompassed all the NFL teams where you could choose your favorites to represent, though no actual real-life players were featured.

During the trial, Epic has previously revealed which of its collaborations with branded IPs have made them the most money, though they didn’t attach actual numbers to that chart:

However, if we know that third place NFL is $50 million, and those lines are anywhere close to accurate in general, we know that Star Wars made just over that and Marvel is close to double that, though that gets complicated with things like the entire battle pass being Marvel themed a few seasons back. Travis Scott by himself apparently made as much as the entire NFL deal, which is wild.

And of course, the vast majority of Epic’s skins are originals it creates in-house or increasingly, sources from its own players with an eye for design.

Fortnite

Epic

This is what’s at stake here, and why Apple doesn’t want to be giving away 30 percent cuts of these sales to Apple which Epic claims has sky-high profit margins it does not deserve, unlike console manufacturers with the same 70-30 split, but they’re selling hardware at a loss. Apple, meanwhile, has been trying to paint Epic as greedy and someone exploiting its young playerbase with this lawsuit being in part about easier accessibility of “impulse purchase” for its kid players.

We don’t know the exact terms of the deals Epic makes for all its IPs. They probably vary, and we don’t know if say, Ninja is sharing revenue on each of his skins sold, or if he got a one-time check for his likeness. So there are costs associated with the revenue here. But still, these are wild, wild numbers, and the trial has shown that Epic and Fortnite have been making more money than anyone ever thought.  

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