Fortnite's Social Media Presence Is Steadily Losing Its Position
Fortnite's social media presence is steadily losing ground
New social stats tracking Fortnite over the previous year show that while the game is still relatively strong, it has been steadily falling from its peak in May 2018.
Fortnite has been one of the biggest and most talked about games in decades. You can’t argue with this, but the game is losing ground and slipping out of attention? The new statistics for tracking social mentions in the game show that, unfortunately, this is exactly the case. On March 6, 2019, social analytics platform Talkwalker released a report on various social media analytics on Fortnite for the year. One of these reports shows that after peaking on May 5th, Fortnite's social presence has steadily declined since then.
There have been some spikes, likely due to events such as the E3 Fortnite Celebrity Pro-Am in June 2018 and the Marshmello in-game live concert in February 2019. Regardless, outside of these events, Fortnite hasn't had a steady rise since the May Rush.
Despite a steady drop in presence, Fornite has risen by a few points, which is likely due to the main events happening with the game. [Talkwalker image] While Fortnite's influence on social media is dwindling, it's still one of the strongest presences in gaming. Its closest competitors are still far behind, but that may not be for long. While PUBG's numbers have declined somewhat in the past year, they have remained broadly stable since August 2018 and look set to stay the same. Meanwhile, new rival Apex Legends had a breakthrough by February 2019, even beating PUBG for a while, though social media mentions dropped a bit to keep up with its battlefield mates.
An interesting aspect of social media analytics conducted by Talkwalker showed a breakdown by age and gender. Men make up 2/3 of the social media presence for both Apex Legends and Fortnite, where Fortnite is more appealing to young people and Apex Legends is attracting the attention of older players. However, PUBG appears to be more evenly distributed across several demographics, with 54% male and 45% female split and 44% 18-25 to 41% 26-34. This more even distribution may explain PUBG's strong presence on social media.
Does PUBG's more even social media demographics contribute to its more enduring presence? This may be the key factor. Regardless, Fortnite doesn't seem to be in danger of losing its place at the top in the near future. Despite his demise, he is still a leader, and even in his waning social media mentions, he still easily surpasses both Apex LegendsAnd PUBG about twice.
If the downturn continues and we see more unique battle royale games populating the genre, it could be that someone outruns Fortnite in the next 1-2 years. At this point, it's safe to assume that we won't stop hearing about a championship game from Epic anytime soon.