Fortnite Battle Royale, published by Epic Games, was just recently released for iOS to great fanfare; it was previously only available on PC and console. The release has been a tremendous hit with more than 40 million users across all platforms and mobile revenue surpassing $15 million in the first three weeks. Fornite Battle Royale is outperforming other leading titles like Candy Crush Saga, Clash of Clans and Pokemon Go. This remarkable success has led to a noticeable increase in Boku’s carrier billing volume from Xbox, PS4, and iOS.
While there have been plenty of hit freemium games on mobile, they are rare on console. The console gaming industry has historically been fueled by the sale of physical discs through retail stores and, more recently, a growing number of full-priced downloads. Yet this shift to digital downloads has been slow due to the frequent discounting by physical retailers and the popularity of buying and selling used discs.
But what happens when console games can be downloaded for free? Discs pass into oblivion. Fortnite Battle Royale can be downloaded to your PlayStation and Xbox for free which means the only people buying the physical discs are those with slow Internet connections. So, while the focus has mostly been on Fortnite Battle Royale’s expansion from console to mobile, perhaps the more interesting observation is the expansion of the freemium model from mobile to console.
