A big question that gets asked a lot of people in the video game industry is “How many people does it take to make a video game?” The answer, much like video games itself, varies on the developer. Some people use a small amount of people to make a game, while others go large to ensure quality and scale. And sometimes, a video game starts off small, and then requires more people to help make it sustainable. Such is the case with Epic Games and Fortnite.
In an interview with Rolling Stone, Tim Sweeney, the founder of Epic Games, revealed that while Fortnite started out with a small dev team, it boomed into something quite massive recently.
“We have 700 people at Epic and it’s the majority. But it’s a fairly unusual situation. We shipped with 25 people and now we’re responding to the reaction.”
By “responding to the reaction”, it’s easy to surmise that he means the boom of players that came on after the free Battle Royale mode released. For that is what brought more players to the fold after its so-so launch without it.
It may sound odd that a vast majority of 700 people are working on one game right now, but it’s honestly not odd at all when you consider what Fortnite is. First, it’s a game that goes through lots of balancing changes. There’s also people who help ensure the servers can hold the strain of the now millions of people playing it. Then, there are those who make new items and weapons for players to use. A bunch of people help make new modes that float in and out of the game and so on and so forth. Add that all up, and you get hundreds of people developing one game.
That being said, Sweeney said this won’t be permanent, Epic Games has more games they want to make, and they’ll be sending people to do those games soon.
