Since the launch of Fortnite Battle Royale, the online multiplayer third-person shooter has dominated Twitch's livestream ratings. Fortnite, off the back of instant-celebrity Ninja, has become a cultural phenomenon in an unprecedented manner. But nothing lasts forever.
A new report from stream analytics agency StreamHatchet in partnership with StreamElements shows that Fortnite's overall viewership fell for its second month in a row. Nevertheless, Fortnite remains the top game on Twitch when comparing overall hours viewed, but is now below a threshold it hasn't been at since February.
According to the report, Fortnite reached a monthly peak of 151.9 million hours watched in July. The battle royale's hours dropped over 13% in August, hitting 131.4 million hours. But it's the September drop that's most worrying, as hours dropped almost 20% to 105.8 million hours watched. This would prove the first time that Fortnite's overall hours watched on Twitch dropped for two consecutive months and just its third monthly drop since it launched in late 2017.
October looks like it's going to be a challenging month for Fortnite to regain some of its losses. Another report from StreamHatchet from the past week shows that Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 is above Fortnite in overall viewership hours, despite Fortnite's big Fall Skirmish tournament bringing in significant numbers. And both games couldn't match the impressive viewership of League of Legends during its popular World Championship tournament.
Even past October, regaining ground is going to be a struggle since it's the season of new game releases. With Battlefield 5 and Super Smash Bros. Ultimate out in November and December respectively, the Twitch landscape for competitive online multiplayer games grows more competitive month by month.
Overall Twitch popularity has remained surprisingly consistent over this period of time, implying that Fortnite viewers are simply spending more time watching other games rather than abandoning Twitch altogether. It also implies that if other games lose popularity faster than Fortnite, those viewers could return.
The most important takeaway is that Fortnite remains a staggering success on Twitch, even with dropping 33% of its viewed hours since it peaked in July. So long as Ninja, Tfue, and other Fortnite streamers stay with the game then it will remain at or near the top. The top just won't be as high as it was during Fortnite's golden months.
Fortnite is available now on Nintendo Switch, PC, PS4, Xbox One, and mobile devices.
Source: StreamElements, StreamHatchet
Disclaimer: Jasmine Henry, a writer for Game Rant, was involved in the editing process of this report for StreamElements, but was otherwise not involved with this article.