Fortnite’s insane success over the last year or so needs absolutely no introduction. The battle royale title has taken the world by storm and on every platform it’s been released for, it’s seen increasingly larger audiences. And while some might think that its dominance might be cause for worry for other other developers and publishers who are also in the competitive online shooter market, EA actually seems to be pretty pleased about the game’s success.
During the EA investors call, the publisher’s CEO Andrew Wilson said that Fortnite’s success is good for the industry, since what it is ultimately doing is expanding the audiences for video games in general, which will ultimately give all companies, EA included, a larger player base to target with their own games.
“So what we have seen is that Fortnite continues to, what we believe, expand the audience,” Wilson said. “We saw incredible engagement in our games through the quarter. As we talked about, we had over 15 million people join our World Cup mode in FIFA. And so our expectation is that as they continue to expand the audience, that provides tremendous opportunity for us going into the holiday season, particularly as we think about launching Madden and FIFA and Battlefield into what is a growing player audience.”
EA CFO Blake Jorgensen, meanwhile, admits that Fortnite’s success has obviously had at least some level of impact on EA’s own business as well, but while that is true, he also feels that EA too is also ultimately going to benefit from a larger number of people playing video games in general.
“Without a doubt, it’s been a phenomenon in the industry, and I’m sure it’s taken up people’s time,” Jorgensen said. “We have a hard time pointing to exactly where that’s impacted our business, but I am sure it is taking up people’s time across the industry. But we also know that, that means more and more people are brought in to play games and will enjoy games in the future, in particular, first-person shooter games down the road.”
And, well, yeah, that makes sense. Fortnite has been a massive success, and undoubtedly it’s brought a great number of people into the fold, for just the entirety of video games in general, many people who probably din’t play games all that much. In that, and in so much more, it’s been a phenomenal success, and it goes without saying that those who’ve had Fortnite as an entry point may very well end up looking for other video game experiences as well.
Those that offer competitive online experiences in shooters would be similar to what Fortnite provides and, as such, would immediately reap those benefits before others, which is why we see games such as Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 and EA’s very own Battlefield V taking crack at the battle royale jig as well. Hell, even Red Dead Redemption 2 hasn’t completely ruled that out yet.