In Six Months, 'Fortnite: Battle Royale' Has Cut PUBG's PC Playerbase In Half

While PUBG remains the most popular game on Steam by quite a wide margin, it’s fallen a long ways from where it was at the start of 2018, which coincides almost exactly with Fortnite: Battle Royale’s meteoric rise.

PUBG was king of the world in January, where it broke every Steam record there was with 3.2 million concurrent players. But since then, the game has been on a downward trajectory, losing about half of its PC population in the months since. The game now gets about ~1.5 million players during peak times on Steam, and that is continuing to fall.

Fortnite, meanwhile, has been a juggernaut. For a while it seemed like both games would be content to grow simultaneously, but the last few months have shown that PUBG’s loss is Fortnite’s gain. While Epic doesn’t release stats all that often, last we heard Fortnite had 40 million players with 3.4 million concurrents. But that was months ago and well before its peak, not that we’re sure the game has even peaked yet, and the latest figures are presumably much, much higher than that.


So, what’s going on? Why is PUBG’s playercount falling rapidly while Fortnite’s continues to climb at an even greater pace? A lot of things are going on here:
Fortnite is free
Fortnite’s monetization model doesn’t involve loot boxes
Fortnite is updated constantly
PUBG is plagued with more technical issues
PUBG is plagued with more cheaters
PUBG is available on less platforms for cross-play (ie. missing ~75 million PS4 players)

And while saying Fortnite is more “fun” than PUBG is subjective, I’m guessing there are a lot of battle royale players who would claim that’s the case as well, between the game’s wacky cosmetics, building-focused gameplay and overall feel. And quite simply, Fortnite is now a cultural phenomenon unlike anything else in gaming at the present moment.

It’s also impossible to talk about this situation without bringing up the fact that PUBG is suing Epic, claiming that Fortnite is ripping off not just the BR concept PUBG helped popularize, but specific elements from weapon design to UI. While legally, that case is going to have to be proven in court, most fans aren’t buying it, and the general perception of PUBG’s attacks on Epic is that they’re bitter about the game’s success. A common refrain is “focus on making your own game better” rather than attempting to tear down competition with legal threats.

I’ve often compared PUBG and Fortnite to DOTA and League of Legends. DOTA helped popularize the MOBA genre on the back of Blizzard mods, then League came along to riff on the concept with an extremely similar, but ultimately more well-received and popular game. Leaguebecame king while DOTA was always a fairly distant #2.


The same thing appears to have happened with PUBG and Fortnite, almost to the letter. PUBGpopularized the battle royale genre based on mods from other games, and then Fortnite came along with its own version that again, ended up being more well-received. Now Fortnite rules the mountain and PUBG’s star is fading, despite arriving first. Though I will say that unlike DOTA, PUBG seems like even its second place status could be in jeopardy if other BR games/modes arrive and unseat it. Black Ops 4’s upcoming BR attempt comes to mind, for instance.

To a certain extent, I do feel for PUBG. It must be frustrating to create a massive hit, then have the very developer you license your engine from immediately build essentially the same thing and have it become far more popular than your own game. This isn’t to say that PUBG has a legal case here, or that they should be wasting time being vengeful against Epic instead of improving their own game, but I at least understand why they’d be irritated.

I’m not sure what the future holds for PUBG. Fortnite mania will not last forever, but it is hard to imagine a scenario where PUBG can climb back to its former glory without some truly massive changes and fixes. But being the most played game on Steam by a wide margin is far from failure, and perhaps there’s a PS4 release in the cards sometime soon as well.

This is a rivalry unlike most others we’ve seen in this industry, not just a battle over gameplay and audience, but in the courtroom as well. It’s fascinating, and one to watch for months and potentially years to come.












Source:Forbes