Fortnite: Battle Royale (PC, PS4, iOS & Xbox One) is a massive success. Through microtransactions alone, the game is said to have generated over 1 billion US dollars. But others must suffer for it: especially League of Legends (LoL) and PUBG are taking a hit. However, overall, many new players are coming to gaming.
Fortnite remains incredibly popular and can attract millions of players to its servers every day. Currently, it is said that Fortnite has generated over 1 billion US dollars solely through microtransactions (via Fortune.)
Even in the now 5th Season, the success of the battle royale game is undeniable. However, those as successful as Fortnite tend to siphon off users from other games – even if they are surprisingly few. Especially League of Legends and PUBG are suffering from Fortnite’s success and losing players.
But overall, Fortnite also encourages many to play more or to start playing again.
Most Free2Play Games are Safe
Many games are safe from harm: The millions of Fortnite players and stream consumers are curiously not a threat to most other major free-to-play games. Thus, the player numbers of numerous titles remained stable, even with the increasing popularity of Fortnite.
Fortnite recorded a 12 percent increase in revenues in May 2018 across consoles. However, most other games remained stable and did not experience any or very few losses. The same applies to Twitch, where games like DotA 2 and Hearthstone remained quite stable while Fortnite reached 574 million hours on Twitch and Co. in May 2018 – surpassing the game in 2nd place, League of Legends, by three times.
LoL and PUBG Must Suffer
Not everyone came away unscathed: Many of the Fortnite users and viewers likely came completely new to the game. However, there is also a portion that likely migrated from other games. These two major losers from Fortnite’s success are PUBG and LoL.
LoL is Losing Players: According to the analysis site SuperData Research, the MOBA League of Legends has lost a significant number of players since November 2017. This was precisely two months after the release of Fortnite: Battle Royale. Other MOBAs, such as DotA 2, on the other hand, have lost nothing and even gained a few new players.
PUBG is losing nearly two-thirds of its revenue: The other major casualty of Fortnite is the competitive title PUBG. Last spring, the revenues fell from 91 million to 33 million dollars.
Homemade Problems: Even though the losses at LoL and PUBG coincide with the rise of Fortnite, both games also have their own issues to contend with:
- For example, PUBG has sworn to pay more attention to performance, stability, and the ongoing cheating problem
- for LoL, significant experimentation with game balance has been done in recent weeks and months
Especially Kids are the Target Audience – Mobile is Growing
Where are they all coming from? Overall, primarily young players have newly joined Fortnite or migrated from other games like Minecraft, LoL, or PUBG. Fortnite appeals to the younger generation particularly with its flat learning curve and colorful graphics.
Young Players can handle Mobile: Battle Royale is no longer just a PC trend. It also works on consoles and even on mobile. While “hardcore gaming” on mobile was long only a topic in Asia, it is now coming to the West as well. Young players who have grown up with Minecraft on mobile can handle the complex mobile controls of Fortnite or PUBG on their phones.
When will the Fortnite hype finally end? Not anytime soon
Battle-Royale trend is unstoppable: Overall, however, the trend still leans towards battle royale. According to SuperData, the genre is expected to generate around 12.6 billion US dollars in revenue. For 2019, over 20 billion US dollars is even predicted. This comes from both classic battle royale games like Fortnite and battle royale modes in games like Battlefield V.
This will stay: At Superdata, they believe that an end to the hype surrounding battle royale is not in sight. This is a trend that has come to stay.
