Analytics firm SuperData has published a report comparing revenue and Twitch viewer stats for both Fortnite and PUBG. And it’s kind of shocking how quickly Fortnite eclipsed PlayerUknown’s Battlegrounds (PUBG) in terms of both viewer numbers on Twitch and overall revenue.
“PUBG is no longer the biggest battle royale game in town. But it still has an edge over games that have yet to come out, giving it time to correct its course and carve out a major share of the market for years to come.”
According to the numbers, the last week of February saw Fortnite with 14 million unique viewers on Twitch. PUBG had 8.7 million unique views on the streaming service.
In February, total PC and console revenue for Fortnite hit $126 million compared to $103 million for PUBG. It should be noted Fortnite is available on PS4 whereas PUBG is not. Fortnite is also free-to-play and has a slightly less steep learning curve. These decisions are likely contributing to Fortnite’s continued success.
The accessibility of Fortnite compared to PUBG is appealing to a younger overall audience, especially on mobile devices, and that’s also helping them out.
PUBG is nothing to laugh at in terms of revenue though. Despite peaking in December 2017 at $712 million in revenue, it’s still a strong contender in the genre. Especially with a user base of over 30 million on PC and Xbox One.
Although PUBG can continue to hold strong by reinforcing its core gameplay loop and building out more realistic and tense gameplay scenarios. So that as the AAA publishers start to enter the genre, PUBG won’t get crowded out by fierce competition, if they can build a demanding and fun gameplay experience.PUBG just added timed game modes like those in Fortnite, so maybe that will help them appeal to more players.
One issue that definitely needs to be addressed is undesirable behavior. Whether it’s toxicity or cheating, hugely popular titles like Fortnite and PlayerUknown’s Battlegrounds will always need to tackle them.