Raised in suburban Potomac, Maryland, Sweeney showed a knack early on for game design and business. At 11, he taught himself to program using the family’s Apple computer and made a hobby of dissecting electronics. Sweeney began designing his own games at age 21, packaging them on floppy disks and sending them through the mail. Sweeney isn’t much of a player himself. He’s a conservationist and one of the biggest private landowners in North Carolina. After the financial crisis, he bought thousands of acres, mostly in the mountains, aiming to create nature preserves. Fortnite brought in more than $1.2 billion, according to SuperData Research. As of early June, it has been played by 125 million people. That’s powered a revenue surge at Epic Games, the company Sweeney created in his parents’ basement 27 years ago. Fortnite alone is on track to generate $2 billion this year, making the Cary, North Carolina-based game-maker worth $5 billion to $8 billion. Sweeney, 47, is the controlling shareholder. Epic could be worth as much as $14 billion. That’s a bonanza for Sweeney and Chinese internet behemoth Tencent Holdings, which bought 40 percent of Epic in 2012 at an $825 million valuation. It’s still unclear what impact Fortnite has had on Tencent’s balance sheet.
| Types | Person, Business Person |