. With seasons planned well in advance, Epic had scheduled an “invasion” themed season, complete with ground wars and virtual tanks rolling through the Fortnite streets.
Epic obviously knew how badly timed this was with the very real, very horrific war in Ukraine raging, and announced that they would be donating all proceeds for the first two weeks of the season, March 20 through April 3, to a number of organizations supporting Ukraine relief. Given the scale of Fortnite and how weighted revenue is going to be toward the beginning of a new season where everyone is buying the battle pass, the number was likely to be large. But the final haul of $144 million? That’s…pretty incredible, one of the largest totals I’ve ever seen from any video game charity drive.
For instance, the fantastic Awesome Games Done Quick charity drive of speedrunners raised $3.4 million in January, a record. On the larger side of things, Activision has raised in total, $53 million for its Call of Duty endowment since 2009, which supports veterans. Child’s Play, the video game-based charity, has raised $44.5 million over its entire lifespan.