While PUBG was the first to popularize the battle royale concept, aside from their initial few months as the only title in the genre, they’ve never been able to secure their position as the defacto game. For one reason or another, the game has become notorious for its many performance issues and glitches. Despite formally stating that fixing these problems was a “top priority,” the PUBG team continued to release new content that was equally as infested with bugs. What’s worse, they actually expected people to pay for this new content. Before there was a lot of speculation as to how long it would remain at the top given the intense competition from Fortnite, but now there is data to support the idea that PUBG is in fact losing the war.
An article recently published on Bloomberg cites a study conducted by a consultancy group called SensorTower, as having compiled the data showing that Fortnite earned five times more revenue than PUBG in the 11 weeks to June 18. Here’s a graphical representation of this.
It’s worth pointing out that the PUBG data includes the revenue they earn from their Android app available on Google Play and that Fortnite doesn’t even have an Android version yet. Despite being noticeably absent on Google Play, Fortnite is still earning significantly more than PUBG. Furthermore, that last PUBG spike is most likely due to its Event Pass
Another interesting tidbit from the report shows a big discrepancy in where the money comes from. PUBG earns a significant chunk of its revenue from Asia, meanwhile Fortnite makes the vast majority of its cash from the US. Regarding the latter, American gamers bring in $75 million US for Fortnite, accounting for more than 50% of their total revenue. Compared with PUBG’s $5.9 million US, it’s easy to see that PUBG has essentially lost the battle royale war in America. The eventual android release of Fortnite would only exacerbate this difference.
From buggy releases, to not delivering on their promises, PUBG has made a lot of mistakes and they haven’t been able to learn from them. With the direction the management team continues to take with the game, the revenue difference between PUBG and Fortnite will only become wider until the latter becomes the obvious defacto king of battle royal.
Featured Image Credits: wccftech
