The rise of Fortnite in 2018 had a significant impact on YouTube. The top 10 YouTubers suddenly focused almost exclusively on Fortnite. However, the leading YouTubers in gaming also change year to year.
So many games cover the 10 largest YouTubers: An analysis firm has presented statistics showing what the ten largest gaming YouTubers cover in various games on YouTube (via GamesIndustry-biz).
This shows a significant change over the last three years:
- In 2016 there were still 383 titles
- In 2017 there were only 326
- In 2018 there were 28
This means that the 10 largest gaming YouTubers only created videos for 28 different games in 2018.
What does Fortnite have to do with it? These 10 top YouTubers achieved 94% of their views with Fortnite.
Fortnite is so dominant for 8 of the 10 top YouTubers that they only made 87 videos that had nothing to do with Fortnite.
How does it look further down? If you consider the top 100 on YouTube instead of the top 10, there is a bit more variety.
Here, Fortnite still accounts for 61% of the videos.
Will that stay the same? Interestingly, analysts explain how high the fluctuation is.
- Only half of the top 100 people from 2017 were still in the top 100 on YouTube in 2018. Therefore, there is a high fluctuation.
- Of the ten largest YouTubers in 2018, 80% were not in the top 10 in 2017. Thus, only 2 out of 10 managed to stay at the top.
Whoever is among the top gaming YouTubers in 2018 must earn their place anew in 2019.
Moreover, while Fortnite was successful throughout 2018, a strong competitor appeared with Apex Legends in February 2019.
On Twitch, Apex Legends has already outperformed Fortnite in February 2019. This could also affect YouTube.
