Fortnite players are spending less and less as revenue plummets

Daniel Cleary

Epic Game’s battle royale title Fortnite has endured massive drops in revenue in recent months, showing a significant decline from the highs of 2018.

According to a new report from Nielsen company, SuperData, which detailed the highest earning games for the month of May 2019, Fortnite has seen a significant drop in revenue compared to previous years.

Fortnite made $203 million in May 2019 across all platforms, which is still a huge return for the popular battle royale game, although it is only good enough for fifth place on the list of PC games revenue, despite remaining number one on consoles.

Fortnite’s revenue drops significantly despite release of Season 9.

It is quite common for popular games to fluctuate with revenue made per month, however, compared to May 2018, Fortnite’s earnings for the same month in 2019 have dropped by a staggering 38% overall.

This will be a surprise to some, as the difference in revenue compared to the previous year comes during one of the most successful months for Fortnite in 2019, after receiving a boost from the release of Season 9 of the Battle Pass on May 9.

Although Fortnite has a strong presence on PC with the vast majority of the game’s professional players opting to use the platform, console players are still the main source of revenue according to SuperData, saying: “Console continues to contribute the largest share of players and revenue.”

SuperData’s chart highlighting the Top 10 games’ revenues for May 2019.

There are many surprising names in the PC category ahead of Fortnite for Western gamers, such as the popular Chinese games, Crossfire and Fantasy Westward Journey Online II, which aren’t far behind League of Legends at number one on the list.

The drop off in revenue is not a good sign for Epic Games, however, as it indicates that players are less interested in spending money on the battle royale game than before.

Assuming this is not just a temporary blip, and indicative of a long term trend, it could also be a cause for concern elsewhere in the Epic business, as they are believed to be using the cash cow of Fortnite to push their ‘Epic Games Store’ launcher aggressively, securing lots of exclusive titles on PC.