BreakingNews·190121 - Fortnite more popular than TV for young people

The video game Fortnite is more popular than television, movies and streaming videos among young people. This is according to the video streaming service Netflix. Gaming is becoming more and more popular with young people worldwide. TV viewing is becoming less popular. Netflix said Fortnite was now more of a competitor than HBO - another popular streaming company. Fortnite is much more popular with young men. A study from the American Economic Association found that between 2015 and 2017, men aged between 21 and 30 spent more time on gaming. Their playing rose from 2.3 hours a day to 4 hours, while time spent on watching TV, movies or streaming fell.

Netflix said it must do more to compete with Fortnite. It said the video game was a big challenge in "the global war for Internet users' attention". Netflix said: "We compete with, and lose to, Fortnite....There are thousands of competitors in this market [trying] to entertain consumers." Fortnite is owned by the company Epic Games. It has over 200 million registered users. More than 80 million people log in to play the game each month. Fortnite is so popular because the game's competitive version is free to play. However, other parts of the game helped Epic Games to make $3 billion in profit last year. Epic has plans to build its own app and game store that will be cheaper than Apple's and Google's.