In a little less than a week, third-person battle royale shooter Fortnite has skyrocketed to the top of the charts on the App Store in more than 40 countries. This is no mean feat considering that the game is invite only at the moment. What's more is, it's managed to earn over $1.5 million (around Rs. 9.7 crore) worldwide in its first four days. In the first 72 hours, the game earned $1 million (close to Rs. 6.5 crore). This is of course on iOS alone as Fortnite is yet to release on Android.
The data on Fortnite launch revenue comes via analytics firm Sensor Tower. Compared to competing titles in the battle royale space, Fortnite has earned more than NetEase's Knives Out and Rules of Survival by a factor of more than 25 in its first four days, compared to the same period after both those titles began monetising. In addition to this, it appears to be punching above its weight when compared to other giant mobile game hits of recent years.
"Fortnite’s revenue is also impressive when put into perspective against some of the largest mobile game launches from the past two years. Purely based on cosmetic IAP, it has managed to gross about one third as much as both Pokémon GO ($4.9 million) and Clash Royale ($4.6 million) made in their first four days of availability on iOS," writes SensorTower's Head of Mobile Insights Randy Nelson.
It will be interesting to see if developer Epic Games is able to sustain Fortnite's revenue in the face of PUBG Mobile's surprise release outside of China. And while the Tencent-developed shooter lacks micro-transactions at the moment, enabling them could see a shift in fortunes what with the fickle nature of the mobile games space.
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