Fortnite: How Artificial Intelligence and Analytics Make It More Fun

The multiplayer online shoot'em up Fortnite is the most popular video game in the world, with more than 250 million players. It is also representative of a relatively new paradigm in gaming – one that has altered the software landscape until it has become almost unrecognizable in recent years. Known as games-as-a-service (GaaS), the game is funded through subscriptions and regular transactions by its players rather than a one-off fee. Although this may not seem all that new to those of us old enough to remember the coin-guzzling likes of Pac Man and Space Invaders, GaaS means the continuous revenue stream funds ongoing development and improvement of the game. And its cloud-based nature (along with the vast userbase) means huge amounts of data is available to developers Epic – the game generates a staggering two petabytes per month.