Bean counters at Superdata have revealed that Fortnite: Battle Royale has officially become the biggest free-to-play console game of all time, dismantling PUBG in the process. Of course, many would argue that this outcome was inevitable.
Superdata are aware of Fortnite's stellar popularity, going as far as to call Epic's game a "phenomenon" due to its financial performance, which would've surely made both Goldman's and Sachs' eyes bulge.
The game's PC, console and mobile versions are said to have raked in $223/£162 million in March 2018. This means that Fortnite has beaten PUBG in terms of monthly revenue and monthly active users on all platforms combined.
To be fair, unlike PUBG, Fortnite still has no Android version but it does have Apple and PlayStation 4 on its side, whereas Greene and Co chose to stick to PC, Xbox One and Mobile. Epic's Fortnite may have started small but the company seem to have done everything right and ultimately toppled down PUBG by hacking away at it, one Fortnite patch at a time.
Thanks to its March 2018 performance, Fortnite has become the largest free-to-play console game of all time, both in terms of revenue generated and in monthly active users. It has had the highest conversion rate among its f2p peers in the same period, which means the highest number of non-paying customers who decided to turn.
Superdata claim that Drake, new Battle Pass season and the John Wick skin all did their part in propelling the game to the pole position in March, although we won't pretend like Fortnite needed any help. In fact, its revenue already outperformed PUBG in February 2018, but the latest numbers are even more impressive.
Fortnite's already impressive February revenue stands at $126/£89 million, but the latest figures show an even more impressive increase of 73 per cent. At this rate, Epic's and Fortnite's upwards trajectory becomes almost scary, even more so when you're an unknown player.
Of course, that's not to say that Fortnite and PUBG are actually locked in an actual fight but there's a lesson to be learned here for many developers - it's about love, trust and ab...just kidding, it's 'don't mess with Epic'.
Epic Games
