The tidal wave of Fortnite continues to wash over the rest of the world, and if it wasn’t obvious already, it is now the most successful Battle Royale game in both popularity and dollars. Research firm SuperData has revealed a new study today showing that while PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds is celebrating its first birthday with wild numbers, Fortnite is simply just doing better.
According to the study, Fortnite has already overtaken PUBG in most success metrics, including unique Twitch viewers; during the last week of February, Fortnite had 14.0M unique viewers on the platform, while PUBG had just 8.7M. In February, Fortnite also passed PUBG in total revenue earned on PC and console ($126M versus $103M), with PUBG’s revenue peaking in December.
SuperData attributes the numbers simply to the fact that Fortnite is more accessible. Not only is it free-to-play, it’s managed to hit consoles well before PUBG and also has a bit of an easier learning curve to the game. Combine this with how speedy Epic Games is at introducing fixes and new content, and you have the formula for a bonafide phenomenon. With more AAA studios likely taking notice and planning on bringing their own Battle Royale games into the ring, it will be interesting to see how the two powerhouse games handle with the increased competition.
In other Fortnite news, a brand new limited-time Blitz mode is available in the game now. Here’s more on the limited time offering:
The new Blitz mode is live now for the next couple of days, and includes “lots of loot” and the promise of faster storms, meaning that zones will be closing around players a lot faster than they might be used to. The developers behind the game took to their site to detail thew new mode, but didn’t reveal exactly how long it would be around for.
According to Epic Games, the match length in Blitz will be a maximum of 15 minutes, meaning there’s going to be a lot of fighting going on and a very fast storm. The game will start with the storm already closing in on the island, and loot availability has been tweaked, meaning players will be finding a lot of great gear as they run from the storm.
Fortnite is available now.
[Source: SuperData]
