Fortnite boasted bigger user numbers than PUBG in October

Epic’s Fortnite: Battle Royale won at least one battle against high-profile rival PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds last month.

New SuperData numbers show that Fortnight had a higher monthly active user count that PUBG throughout for October, thanks in no small part to the fact that it’s available on more platforms and is also completely free.

The latter, of course, means that Fortnite’s total revenue is “a fraction” of that boasted by Bluehole’s game, which costs £26.99 to download. Fortnite does now boast cosmetic microtransactions, though, so we’ll wait to see what impact that has.

Nonetheless, SuperData adds that Fortnite’s “long-term success vs its major and earlier-released rival is uncertain”, and that “the challenge will be converting its higher user base into spenders”. There’s also the fact that PUBG lands on Xbox One on December 12th and will leave Steam Early Access shortly after, while at the same time launching the new desert map.

Overall digital games revenue grew 15 per cent in October year-on-year, SuperData adds, reaching $8.5bn. This was driven by a 28 per cent jump in PC revenues thanks to the launch of Destiny 2 on BattleNet and, of course, PUBG, which had its biggest ever month, selling 5m units.

Mobile was also up, climbing 19 per cent thanks to titles such as Tencent’s Honour of Kings. Super Mario Odyssey was also the biggest ever digital launch on Switch, selling 191k units worldwide.

There was also success for digital single-player games, with South Park: The Fractured But Whole, Middle-earth: Shadow of War and Assassin’s Creed Origins collectively generating around $160m.