Epic raises $36 million in 24 hours via Fortnite for humanitarian relief in Ukraine

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Recently, Epic had announced that they will be donating all profits from the sales in the first two weeks (i.e. March 20th to April 3rd) of Chapter 3 season 2 for humanitarian relief for people affected by the war in Ukraine. 

Season 2 launched on March 20 at around 08:00 am CT and as of March 21 at the same 08:00 am CT time, Fortnite has raised over $36 million from sales in the game. Epic made the announcement via a tweet from the official Fortnite account. 

In the same tweet, Epic also detailed that all amounts raised will be donated to a list of charities including UNICEF, the World Food Programme, the UN Refugee Agency, and Direct Relief. All these charities and organizations are working on-ground in the war-torn regions of Ukraine providing food, clean water, shelter, first aid, and supplies to the people. 

Alongside Epic, Xbox had also announced via a tweet that they will be partnering with Fortnite to donate all profits from Fortnite for the next two weeks to Ukrainian aid. 

Epic had already said that All real-money Fortnite purchases made between March 20 and April 3 will be part of the donation. This includes V-Buck packs, Fortnite Crew, gifted Battle Passes, and cosmetic packs, almost everything in the store. Even the retail store purchases of in-game cosmetics and V-Bucks cards will be included if they are redeemed in-game during the 2-week donation drive.  

Read more about Epic’s donation drive here.

Epic’s $36 million donation is likely the largest crowdfunded contribution from a gaming company to the Ukrainian people to date. Before Epic, itch.io had the largest contribution drive that managed to raise more than $6 million via the sale of a special 1000 games bundle titled “Bundle for Ukraine”. 

Fortnite is arguably the biggest and most popular battle royale on the planet right now, and the proceeds from sales on the first day back that notion. It will be interesting to see how much money Epic was able to raise at the end of the fundraising period on April 3rd.

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