In 2018, the Pro-Am of Fortnite was the most-watched event on Twitch. In 2019, the event lost 72% of its concurrent viewers, and Fortnite dropped against League of Legends on Twitch. We ask: Is the hype around Fortnite over?
This was the Pro-Am tournament: The tournament took place the weekend after E3 right in Los Angeles. At E3 itself, Fortnite hardly played a role; they wanted to celebrate their own party afterward.
In the Pro-Am, there were:
- 50 popular Fortnite players known from Twitch or YouTube
- and 50 “stars or starlets” from the world of music, sports, or TV and films
They formed 50 duos and played for a good cause for 3 million US dollars.
So were the Twitch numbers:
- 2018 was the Pro-Am the biggest event on Twitch with 1.5 million viewers at peak. That brought Fortnite far ahead at the time
- 2019 had the tournament at peak merely 472,000 viewers on Twitch
You can see from the numbers that the event in 2018 was a real outlier. Nothing came anywhere near it.
How important was the tournament for Epic: The Pro-Am tournament of Fortnite was heavily promoted by Epic. For weeks, the listing of the top players came through the Twitter channel.
They also had the big stars on board:
- Last year’s winner Ninja was with former football player Marshawn Lynch, but they only placed 19th.
- Tfue came third with basketball star Josh Hart.
- And Airwaks won the thing with RL Grime.
Epic escalated the Pro-Am, but in 2019, it didn’t resonate as much as last year.
They could have really used a big hit, as viewer numbers for Fortnite on Twitch are slowly dwindling, and League of Legends is getting closer.
In July 2018, there were still 223,434 average viewers per day; in the last 30 days, there have been only 128,873 (via githyp)
Why was the hit event from 2018 so weak now?
What caused the Pro-Am to flop? There are several factors. One reason is that the event was gigantic on Twitch in 2018.
The Pro-Am was the first “real Fortnite event” in June 2018, and millions wanted to see it.
It was pretty clear that the Pro Am in 2019 would not be able to replicate that success.
But there are also specific problems in 2019:
- Fortnite is no longer fresh – in July 2018, Fortnite was pretty much at its peak after the “Drake/Ninja” phenomenon. Many rediscovered the game for themselves. That huge hype has been gone for a while. The shooter is no longer “the hot new thing.”
- Air has gone out a bit – Fortnite is still an enormous game but is no longer the pop culture phenomenon it was a year ago. This is also due to the relatively weaker seasons recently. The air is a little out in 2019.
- Streamer fatigue – the Pro-Am tournament relies on streamers exciting their audience and getting them to watch. However, they have been doing this continuously for a year and a half. Eventually, it wears off.
- Not important enough for streamers – The tournament does not hold the prestige for streamers as other more prestigious events. It is more of a “Fortnite” thing and not something beneficial to their own brand. This was evidently seen when Tfue and Ninja wanted to drop out beforehand to play the WM qualifier instead.
- Event oversaturation – in 2018, there were hardly any “Fortnite events.” The Pro-Am at that time was the 1st real tournament. In 2019, the WM qualification runs every week. For many viewers, it is significantly more exciting to follow their streamer there than at a fun event in LA.
Other tournament formats that rely on streamers are successful
Is Fortnite really running out of steam on Twitch? There is at least a noticeable decline. However, formats like “Fortnite Friday” achieve extremely high viewer counts:
In this showdown, the “streamers and YouTubers” are fully in focus, as they energize their fans.
However, Fortnite Friday is not about “peak viewers on Twitch”; they rather focus on a long evening across all platforms.
The format, however, apparently still works very well, even better than in 2018, because there are now many more content creators with huge fanbases than before.
Fortnite does not need stars from pop culture
This is shown by the event: The appeal of the celebrities that Epic invited to the Pro-Am seems limited.
Fortnite does not need “other stars from music and pop culture” – the real stars of the gaming world are content creators like Ninja, Tfue, or Myth.
People would probably rather see Ninja and Tfue on a team than Ninja and a football player.
Even though the “Drake moment” was a huge deal for Fortnite, it is hard to replicate that with any random celebrities from the 2nd or 3rd tier.
The comparatively weak Pro-Am tournament in 2018 is therefore not necessarily a Fortnite problem, but also a specific problem of this format.
The question is whether the Fortnite World Cup will actually bring in more viewers.
Because although the best players are playing against each other, they are not the most popular.
What could Fortnite do? If Fortnite wants to achieve maximum Twitch numbers, they probably need to hold more “showdowns” like Fortnite Friday to maximize the hype.
Additionally, the game needs more variety again. The content designers are working themselves to the bone, to keep the game fresh and they are continually bringing great new modes and items.
But Fortnite currently lacks impulses and new ideas. The level of changes in Fortnite was so high in 2018 due to things like the hidden story, that “normal” is now perceived as “weak.”
Is the Fortnite hype over? No, it is not over. But it is also no longer at the level it was in 2018.
It is becoming increasingly difficult for Epic to maintain the hype. What worked in 2018 may not be successful in 2019.
You could see that streamers, viewers, and players yearn for variety – after 15 months of continuous Fortnite hype, the air is out. A natural process.
What is important for Fortnite now is to showcase the entertainment potential of their best streamers – they currently seem to struggle with that.
