• On Monday, October 15th, Epic Games announced In-Game Tournaments for Fortnite, allowing all players to compete in events to win prizes.
• The first batch of tournaments includes 5 different competitions: two solo events, two duo events, and one squad event. Tournaments have varying start and end dates, but the earliest competition started on October 16th, and the last competition wraps up on November 30th.
• The timing of the announcement is notable, as Fortnite is trying to compete with the recent launch of Call of Duty: Black Ops 4.

After committing $100M to esports competitions in May, Fortnite announced in-game tournaments available to all players. The announcement is great news for fans because they’ll be able to compete against other players in new ways. The announcement also comes at a pivotal time as Fortnite fends off competition from the new battle royale mode, Blackout, in Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 (CoD). We looked at TwitchTracker to get a sense of how the release of CoD has impacted Fortnite and PUBG viewership and answer our core question: what happens next for Fortnite?

There are two important things to consider when looking at these numbers. First, the month of October is not yet complete. Second, not all CoD viewership is spent in battle royale. CoD has been a successful team-based FPS game for a long time and viewers likely spend time watching other game modes in addition to Blackout. We added our own estimates to where the three titles will end up if they continue at their current pace for the month. It’s easy to see the decline in PUBG viewership. This will likely continue with the launch of CoD.

Another way to look at Fortnite interest is to look at maximum viewers. When doing so, it’s clear the major events have a significant impact on Fortnite’s viewership on Twitch. As seen above, Fortnite’s first peak was in Mar-18 when Ninja streamed with Drake, JuJu Smith-Schuster, and Travis Scott. At the time, this stream set a record for concurrent viewership on Twitch at 628,000 viewers. This traffic accounted for the vast majority of Fortnite’s 840,072 concurrent viewers that day. The second peak occurred in Jun-18 during E3’s Celebrity Pro-Am Tournament. The winners of the tournament were, you guessed it, Ninja and Marshmello. Both of these major traffic events included Fortnite’s most popular player, Ninja, but also included celebrities as well, drawing in mainstream fans. Time will tell if Fortnite’s in-game tournaments will draw the same level of popularity. The finale for the Fortnite Fall Skirmish will be held at TwitchCon October 26th – 28th and will likely draw a large audience, both in-person and online.

Into the Future

Epic’s announcement included a few hints at what is to come for tournaments:

“Over the next few months, we’ll be continuing to develop the tournaments feature to allow for events to occur across multiple rounds, requiring players to have earned a pin to qualify for each subsequent round.”

While earning a pin may not seem like a big deal, this is an effort to incentivize players to continue to compete in tournaments for an extended period of time. Just as you can’t go back and earn items from previous Fortnite seasons, players won’t be able to earn pins unless they compete in events.

“We’re working toward establishing an exciting and varied schedule of tournaments for players of all talent levels, featuring new scoring formats and support for additional modes.”

Ensuring that players are competing at the right talent level is important for Fortnite’s future. Players will be excited to compete in any tournament at the beginning, but making players feel like they have a chance to win a given tournament is key to longer-term engagement. The pool of players who can compete at the top is small. Delivering an accurate ranking system should be a priority going forward.

“Beginning later this year, all eligible players will have the opportunity to qualify for the 2019 Fortnite World Cup directly through a ‘Showdown Royale’ event hosted using the in-game tournament system.”

As we’ve mentioned, major events drive viewership to Twitch and help re-engage Fortnite’s audience. It’s clear how important these events are when looking at maximum viewers on Twitch. The Fortnite World Cup could be another top event, despite not having any celebrity involvement.

While the month of October isn’t complete, if Fortnite continues at its current pace it will slightly surpass hours watched in Sep-18. Regardless of whether Fortnite’s popularity has peaked or not, we’ve moved beyond the initial hype phase, and Epic needs to focus on increasing the longevity of the title. Launching in-game tournaments is a great step in doing so to give players a reason to keep coming back to the title. While the Call of Duty franchise is doing what it can to capitalize on the popularity of battle royale, Fortnite can learn from Call of Duty as it tries to turn Fortnite into a franchise that will last for years to come. Adding prize pool competitions directly into the game is a great next step.

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