The consumption of video game content on the network is the new television, a phenomenon with proper names that dominate the landscape.
78% of children between the ages of ten and twelve consume videos on the Internet dedicated to video games. So says a recent study in the United States by SuperData to more than a thousand young people. The data represents that times are changing, that the old television remote control now has the dilemma between choosing YouTube or Twitch. In addition, there are proper names, with Fortnite: Battle Royale as one of the main contenders, but not the only one.
Not even Netflix is able to curb the interest of video game related content on these content platforms on demand, as reflected in another recent study by Pipper Jaffray . But that merit is not so much of the platforms themselves as of the video games that support the role of social phenomenon today. Fortnite: Battle Royale is one of them, although it is not at its best and shows, in this way, that nothing is forever.
Despite its more than 250 million registered users until March 2019, last September the free multiplayer game with integrated purchases of Epic Games recorded its month with worse figures in net turnover since November 2017 — 43% less than the month immediately before—, clearly indicative that perhaps the game had already lived its best days and, from now on, its results in audience and billing were going to be more rational.
All in all, Fortnite was the seventh game with the most revenue from all over the world in consoles, a ranking led that September by titles such as NBA 2K20 and FIFA 20 , which have managed to amortize such expensive productions in the long term through microtransactions and game modes with modalities where random loot boxes and other random elements appear.
These results serve to understand that what happened on October 13, with that black hole that precipitated the total "disappearance" of the video game for 35 hours, was not a product of chance. The American publisher had everything calculated in a marketing strategy that many have described as extraordinary by capturing the attention of millions of people through silence: you couldn't play, you couldn't buy, there was no official communication.
Fortnite returned after a day and a half with several million dollars not entered on the road, but with the assurance that the movement was not only going to compensate for the fall but to serve to take flight. According to Rubén MartÃnez , expert responsible for the news of the title on the MeriStation videogame website, the reaction of the players to Fortnite: Chapter 2 has been mainly positive “given the avalanche of news, including a completely new scenario”. MartÃnez adds that “there does not seem to be the same level of selflessness as during the previous season. Epic Games has known, in a way, reinvent Fortniteand make many players return who left him in favor of other titles of the same genre such as PUBG or Apex Legends, ”contenders who also amass millions of users; the latter with more than 70 million players .
What video games are the most watched?
Because qualifying as success what happened with the so-called The End of Forntite event this past October 13 is a fact. According to a Twitch representative in statements to The Washington Post , the moment of maximum audience of the disappearance of the game reached the highest peak of concurrent viewers in the history of the platform, owned by Amazon, with more than 1.7 million people. Never had an event dedicated to a video game had such a large number of people stuck to the screen on Twitch. Throughout the night there were more than 6 million concurrent viewers if you also have YouTube, a record record.
But what alternatives exist to Fortnite: Battle Royale ? In Twitch the threat begins to be more and more palpable with the negative evolution of the title of Epic Games, which has closed this third quarter with 223.4 million hours seen, although it holds first place. Works such as League of Legends - which now celebrates its tenth anniversary - or the veteran World of Warcraft , closed the podium of leaders with 218.4 million hours and 189.9 million hours respectively, which shows that the trend current consumption is very clear: the so-called battle royale genres (multiplayer games where dozens of players face each other until there is only one left); the battle arena(those multiplayer games with real-time strategy, usually by teams), in which these two mentioned above are framed; and the shooter, where video games like CS: GO, Overwatch and Rainbow Six: Siege stand out , among many others.
According to MartÃnez, the current Fortnite scenarioIt is not at all worrying, although it does warn that there is no long-term invulnerable video game. "Taking into account the good reception of the black hole event, it is expected that it has traced in this aspect, although we doubt that at a level of its best months," which are in spring and summer of 2018. However, Martinez Rate this type of success as "fashions and periods" where some titles hold higher than others. "We are in a plateau phase of the current fashion genre [the battle royale], so from now on we can only expect a decreasing trend with some specific peak," he concludes. Stability, however, must now be Epic Games' top priority before an eventual continued decline in audience throughout the year; or of a possible sustained improvement after this Chapter 2.
Twitch dominates in the field of streaming
If we focus on the platforms, Twitch is the channel chosen by the vast majority of users around the world, as reflected in a study by Streamlabs and Newzoo (Q3 / 2019). There were many doubts about whether the departure of the Tyler “Ninja” Blevins star from Twitch , with its more than 14.7 million followers , was going to have a negative effect on the monthly figures. A millionaire contract made the 28-year-old born in Illinois, United States, exchange Amazon's solution for Microsoft's, Mixer, where he already has more than 2.58 million followers .
The reality is that Twitch has been successful in the third quarter of 2019 (from July 1 to September 30) and remains the undisputed queen not only in the amount of monthly hours consumed through her videos and direct but also in the number of content creators broadcasting every day; In fact, they managed to improve their results for the second quarter by registering 2,551 million hours seen compared to 2,439 million hours in the previous quarter. One of the reasons for the rebound is in World of Warcraft , by the American company Blizzard Entertainment, a fireproof success that places this company as the favorite, above Riot Games, Valve and Epic Games, respectively.
Mixer has skyrocketed, with a growth of 188% compared to the previous quarter due to the so-called “Ninja effect”, thus going from 11.3 million hours seen to 32.6 million hours in the last quarter of this year.
In between is YouTube Gaming Live, Google's alternative for streaming content from video games, with 675.9 million hours seen in a quarter almost identical to the previous one.
Another story is the number of unique channels broadcasting content. The "Ninja effect" has played in favor of Mixer, which after its arrival has gone from 1.95 to 3.9 million content creators; many of them motivated by the hope of being splattered by the success that Blevins drags. Twitch, on the other hand, continues in recess since the beginning of the year and has passed in a semester of 5.6 million channels to 3.77 million content creators. Again, on YouTube there are hardly any changes, with 11.1 million channels, stalled since last year.
In any case, the battle royale genre does not seem to have reached its end; either with Fortnite or with an alternative proposal, the videogame is in a moment of maximum attention both for those who enjoy this cultural medium alone and for those who prefer to see others while they play.
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