Epic Games has revealed that its campaign to donate proceeds to Ukraine relief has already reached $36 million USD in just the first day. All net profits from Epic Games and Xbox from Fortnite from March 20 to April 3 will be committed to humanitarian aid due to the ongoing conflict between Ukraine and Russia.
How did Fortnite amass $36 million in donations?
— Fortnite (@FortniteGame) March 20, 2022
According to a blog post on the official Epic Games website, all real-money purchases in Fortnite within the aforementioned two-week period will be distributed to four charities. This means that any proceeds made from Battle Passes, Fortnite Crew, V-Buck packs, and cosmetic packs – in addition to retail store purchases – will be put into the total pool that is donated.
That pool of money will be given as fast as they can to Direct Relief, United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), UNHCR – The UN Refugee Agency, and the United Nations World Food Programme (UNWFP). Epic Games says that they will be expediting the process between payments and donations:
“We’re not waiting for the actual funds to come in from our platform and payment partners, which can take a while depending on how the transaction was processed. As transactions are reported, we’ll log them and send the funds to the humanitarian relief organizations within days.”
While the popularity of Fortnite is not in question, it’s still shocking that Epic Games and Microsoft have been able to accumulate that much in donations in only a day. If that’s how much money they get on a daily basis from Fortnite, it goes to show how successful the live-service shooter really is, with or without this Ukraine campaign.
In other news, PlayStation is acquiring Haven Studios to create a new, original IP for the platform, and PSN is incorrectly congratulating players for unlocking the Platinum Trophy for Gran Turismo 7.
