The big picture: Sweeney's words may sound like marketing fluff but Fortnite has the numbers to back it up. It's one of the rare titles that have made the jump from video game to cultural phenomenon, utilizing modern mediums like social media and competitive gaming to further expand its popularity.
Fortnite is enjoying its proverbial 15 minutes of fame as arguably the world's most popular game but according to Epic CEO Tim Sweeney, its time in the limelight isn't likely to fade anytime soon.
In a recent interview with Business Insider, Sweeney said that as Fortnite evolves, it's evolving beyond being a game.
Much of that evolution has to do with a new game mode introduced last December called Creative mode. In this mode, players work together - rather than against each other - to build new maps. According to Sweeney, Creative mode has attracted more than 100 million players since launch.
In the grand scheme of things, Sweeney said he views Creative mode as an extension of the Unreal Engine, the game engine Epic made available for free to everyone back in 2015. Ultimately, Sweeney said he hopes Creative mode will ease the transition that gamers experience from playing and building in Fortnite to eventually using the Unreal Engine to develop advanced content.
"Fortnite is the 250 million user version of the tool, which is a game and also a creative platform for 100 million people for building content. Which is an impressive number and bigger than any game engine by far. And then 7.5 million people have been in Unreal Engine 4, the super-high-end content creation tool."