Battle Royale Showdown: Fortnite & PUBG dethroned by Knives Out

NetEase's Knives Out Dominated Mobile's Battle Royale Genre in 2018 with More Than $460 Million Grossed

The biggest name in gaming last year may have been Fortnite from Epic Games, but when it came to mobile titles in the burgeoning battle royale genre, none was more flush with cash than Knives Out. Published by China’s NetEase, the title grossed an estimated $465 million worldwide in 2018—more than Fortnite’s $455 million sum—according to Sensor Tower’s Store Intelligence data, despite the fact that most mobile gamers in the United States probably haven’t heard of it.

That’s because the game generated less than 1 percent of its 2018 revenue from U.S. mobile gamers. Players in Japan, on the other hand, are very familiar with the title—and it’s the country’s most popular battle royale game on mobile. How popular? Nearly 80 percent of Knives Out’s revenue last year came from Japan, where players spent an estimated $370 in the game across the App Store and Google Play.

To put this into perspective within the genre, this figure is more than 11 times greater than what the country’s mobile gamers spent in PUBG Mobile on both platforms during 2018. It’s so surprise, given this, that NetEase updated the game with a new Tokyo map in November—and its revenue has only been increasing since.

Another factor working in Knives Out’s favor is that, unlike PUBG Mobile, the game is able to accept in-app payments from users in China. Based on our data, iOS players there accounted for about 18 percent of the game’s worldwide revenue for the year. That’s a much smaller percentage than Japan, but still amounted to more than $81 million during 2018 and made China the title’s second largest territory by player spending.

EDIT:

FYI, Knives Out is a battle-royale game from Tencent released on PC and mobiles (and soon getting a PS4 release). In addition to Knives Out, Tencent partly owns both Fortnite and PUBG. So Tencent is essentially competing against itself.

Mobile, no one cares

whoa, Knives Out sure is a cash cow. I think I remember seeing this a while ago. It's also on PC.

That's where Fortnite makes most of its money.

Is it another Tencent game? If yes, quite crazy.

Funny how games that no one cares about generates hundreds of millions of dollars. I mean, we don't care about them, but that statement is factually incorrect.

Anywho, it disgusts me that people would spend hundreds of dollars, even thousands, on mobile games..

Eh? Fortnite makes most of its cash from BattlePass and other trinkets,

Just because most play from a mobile device does not mean mobile suddenly matters.

That's how it makes most of its money. Mobile is where it makes most of its money.

Mobile doesn't matter to us here on SW. But it matters to the wider game industry, where mobile is becoming increasingly dominant, for better or worse.

Yes, it makes money on its Battlepass and trinkets like the dances and costumes.

Also, you are correct mobile does not matter to us here in SW or the average gamer in general because we are gamers and play games, the thing with mobile is that the market they are hitting are not the same as let´s say Destiny 2 or Fortnite hits. My Grandmother plays on her iPad but she plays these quick small games that have zero appeal to a normal gamer because it´s about grinding in real time where you can pay to avoid it, like Clash of the Titans and other games you can take out for a few mins, put back and then go on with your day.

So you are right it matters but it does not matter to the gaming industry in general, if we talk about the main market for mobile because it´s not the same.

Its false to state that mobile gaming doesn't matter to the gaming industry in general. Its silly to confuse your personal opinion to reality.

@Jacanuk:

The game industry is dominated by mobile gaming. More than half of the entire game industry's revenue comes from mobile gaming, which alone generates more revenue than PC and consoles combined. The "average gamer" today plays games on mobile devices, i.e. what many might call "casuals" around here.

Fortnite largely caters to the casual mobile market. Most of Fortnite's players are mobile gamers, and the majority of Fortnite's revenue comes from mobile players. For the past couple of years, most of the highest-grossing video games have been mobile games. That's just the way things are nowadays. Just sayin'.

The game industry is not the same as mobile "games". They cater to two completely different markets. Are there overlaps, sure and does Tencent own Epic and LoL sure, but that does not mean that mobile is or should be considered part of the main gaming industry. Why do you think there is no Tencent press conference at E3? it is after all in size as big as any of the other big industry giants.

Also, Fortnite was a massive hit long before it came to mobile, not to mention it´s cross-platform, so no Fortnite does not cater mostly to the casual mobile market, it caters to kids who have two main platforms consoles and mobile.

That's not how the game industry works. You're confusing the wider game industry with sectors within the industry. The game industry consists of the following sectors: PC, arcade, console, handheld, and mobile. There is no "main" game industry, but there are individual sectors within the wider game industry.

As for Tencent, what you're referring to is more of a geographic distinction, rather than a platform distinction. Tencent is the world's biggest gaming company because they're just as dominant in the PC market as they are in the mobile market. Their PC games CrossFire and Dungeon Fighter Online (DFO) are the world's most-played non-mobile games, while DFO is the highest-grossing game of the last two decades. But since Tencent is a company that mainly caters to Asian markets, whereas E3 is a convention that mainly caters to Western markets, there's no reason for Tencent to hold an E3 press conference unless they're targeting Western markets... which they did for Arena of Valor at E3 2018.

PUBG, Fortnite and Knives Out all have PC, console and mobile versions. And they play very similarly across all platforms. The mobile versions are obviously downscaled (and with worse controls), but they're still essentially the same games as their PC and console counterparts, and it's their mobile versions that draw the most players and revenue. It makes no sense at all to artificially segregate their PC/console and mobile versions into entirely different industries.

Fortnite reportedly made a profit of $3 billion in 2018 according to TechCrunch, so Epic Games is probably not too worried either way.

@itsmejerry04: That's Epic Games, not Fortnite. That includes the money they make from other products (such as Unreal Engine) and investments. Fortnite itself may have pulled somewhere around $1-2 billion across all platforms, and the same could probably be said for the other two... PUBG and Knives Out are huge in Asia, where Fortnite has failed to catch on.

I've never heard about Knives Out until now.. Sounds like a shitty game, just like the other hoards of battle royale money milking crap games.

I see a bunch of sourpusses jealous about mobile. ;)

PUBG IS STILL ALIVE !!

To everyone saying mobile doesn’t matter....it does.

It does bc it makes a shit ton of money and we’ve already seen things from mobile carry over.

I’m not saying it’s better or Candy Crush being played by your mom is the same as any of us playing Warframe or RDR2, but it matters to companies.

i have seen some of these.

Mobile gaming doesn't matter here on SW????

Don't tell the Switch users that.

@ronyking247: good job bumping the thread for nothing

Won't be doing it anymore.