Fortnite earned a massive $2.4 billion in 2018
PUBG didn't do badly either.
In case you were in any doubt that Fortnite has practically exploded in popularity since it's launch, figures from SuperData's latest report show that the battle royale earned $2.4 billion in 2018.
According to the report from SuperData (via GI.biz) Fortnite earned more digital revenue than any other game in 2018, contributing to the 11 percent rise in digital game revenue across all platforms. It seems to have also succeeded in pushing up the revenue for free-to-play console games by 458 percent over the 2017. Just to give you an idea of how far ahead Fortnite is, the second highest revenue game was Nexon's Dungeon Fighter Online with $1.5 billion.
And while we're on the subject of battle royale games dominating digital revenue, PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds hasn't been doing too badly either, coming in at the top of the premium digital revenue report with $1.028 billion—a number that doesn't include the free-to-play mobile version. To give some context, you can check out the top five games with the highest premium revenue earned for 2018 below.
- 1. PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds, Bluehole - $1.028 billion
- 2. FIFA 18, Electronic Arts - $790 million
- 3. Grand Theft Auto V, Take-Two Interactive - $628 million
- 4. Call of Duty: Black Ops IIII, Activision Blizzard - $612 million
- 5. Red Dead Redemption 2, Take-Two Interactive - $516 million
Regardless of your take on the battle royales, they have proved popular enough to generate a huge amount of revenue. And hey, if Fortnite or PUBG don't float your boat, it might be worth checking out Black Ops 4's Blackout while it's free to play until next week.
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Sarah started as a freelance writer in 2018, writing for PCGamesN, TechRadar, GamingBible, Red Bull Gaming and more. In 2021, she was offered a full-time position on the PC Gamer team where she takes every possible opportunity to talk about World of Warcraft and Elden Ring. When not writing guides, most of her spare time is spent in Azeroth—though she's quite partial to JRPGs too. One of her fondest hopes is to one day play through the ending of Final Fantasy X without breaking down into a sobbing heap. She probably has more wolves in Valheim than you.