A new PC Games Impact Index report is published each quarter. Click here to review the most recent edition.

These days, nearly every competitive video game has its own tournament scene and developer-run esports initiative. As a first-time investor, or a brand looking to market to this rapidly growing audience, it can be difficult to know where your budget should be spent. How can you tell if Rocket League has a greater impact in the industry than Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six Siege? Fortnite has dominated headlines, but has it truly risen to the top of the heap?

To answer these questions, and many more, The Esports Observer has developed a metric that quantifies the impact of PC game titles, powered by Newzoo’s analytics. This metric takes into account six key performance indicators (KPIs), weighting these benchmarks and combining them into an overall impact index.

It should be noted that while esports activity is weighted into the impact index, high viewership and active player base scores can allow non-esports titles like Minecraft and Grand Theft Auto to break into the watchlist. Additionally, with Twitch having been blocked in China in September, the Chinese PC game player base has not been included in the Impact Index as it would unfortunately create inaccurate results. As such, the Index does not account for the Chinese market.

The six KPIs (and their respective weights) are:

Monthly Active PC Players: 30%

Distributed Esports Winnings: 25%

Esports Hours Watched (on Twitch): 20%

Total Twitch Hours Watched: 15%

Number of Tournaments: 5%

Concurrent Twitch Streams: 5%

Twitch viewership metrics are gathered using TEO Access.

Q3 2018: League of Legends Still Going Strong

Reports of the demise of League of Legends (LoL) have been greatly exaggerated. While Fortnite has soared to the upper reaches of impact with a score of 57.71, League of Legends remains firmly on top at 59.24. Although Fortnite dominated Twitch for much of the quarter, its developer, Epic Games , has limited the number of tournaments through its Skirmish Series. Fortnite tournaments rely on participation from popular streamers, and so with Epic hosting its own tournaments on Friday nights, third parties have drastically reduced their involvement with the game. Epic’s esports initiative is also currently limited to Europe and North America, where LoL has a much broader, global tournament ecosystem.

While developer Riot Games also heavily controls the highest level of competitive play, there are weekly professional leagues around the world, as well as a number of regional semi-professional leagues. This greatly increases the number of officially recognized tournaments per quarter. Additionally, most professional LoL leagues concluded their summer seasons during Q3 in advance of the World Championship. This means that there was a significant increase in distributed winnings during the quarter, helping the game offset the millions paid out by Epic Games during its few Fortnite events. More tournaments with higher stakes also lead to a significantly higher number of esports hours watched; Fortnite generated 307.73K hours while LoL earned 52.72M.

[perfectpullquote align=”right” cite=”” link=”” color=”” class=”” size=””]Over the course of the year, the overall gap in impact of the top 15 games has shrunk.[/perfectpullquote]

Looking at the titles in third and fourth place in the PC Game Impact Index Ranking, we see Valve’s two esports titles, Counter-Strike: Global Offensive and Dota 2 , locked in an incredibly tight race. While these two games have perhaps the most number of tournaments, they lack the playerbase of LoL or Fortnite, which gives those two games the edge.

All eyes were on Dota 2 in August during its biggest tournament, The International 2018, as Valve distributed roughly $25M USD in total prize money—the most ever given out at a single tournament. The event drew massive viewership, but Dota 2 was ultimately edged out by Counter-Strike due in part to that key difference in their pro-level structure.

For Dota 2, The International overshadows everything. While there are third party tournaments, they happen far less frequently than in Counter-Strike. In addition to awarding a $1M prize at the FACEIT London Major, which dominated esports viewership during September, tournament organizers held 189 Counter-Strike tournaments during the quarter, compared to Dota 2’s 21.

In comparison to the first two quarters, Q3 of 2018 shows lower impact indices overall for each game. This indicates that, over the course of the year, the overall gap in impact of the top 15 games has shrunk. The top games are becoming less dominant as smaller games grow their esports structures and add new content to draw in more players and viewers.

Fortnite and World of Warcraft on the Rise

Fortnite ended the first quarter of 2018 in eighth place with an impact index of 13.64 while World of Warcraft was near the bottom at number 14 with a score of 4.04. Both games have seen their scores grow significantly over the course of the year, with Fortnite battling for the top spot and World of Warcraft resting comfortably in the middle of the pack at 57.71 and 18.33, respectively. Both games saw dramatic boosts in Q2, though for vastly different reasons.

The second quarter marked the true beginning of Fortnite esports as it exists today with the Pro-Am at E3. The event broke Twitch’s viewership record and was the first step towards Epic’s Skirmish Series, which distributed the majority of the game’s $9.56M in prize money during Q3.

While it has a developer-run esports program, World of Warcraft’s rise perfectly showcases the importance of content updates. The game saw a massive increase in Twitch viewership before the release of its latest expansion, Battle for Azeroth. World of Warcraft is a game built on a cycle of major content releases. These expansions create a natural return point for players who have left the game, and draw interest from non-players who watch on Twitch to see how the game has evolved since they last played. Next year, World of Warcraft will likely drop in the rankings as players grow tired of Battle for Azeroth, and will just as likely surge once again when the next expansion is released.

There is one development from Q3 that could actually help World of Warcraft find greater yearlong stabilization through a newly emergent esport: raid racing. In September, professional gaming organization Method broadcast their attempts to achieve World First in Battle for Azeroth’s most difficult dungeon (for more explanation on how raiding works, check out TEO’s coverage on Method’s World First). The game saw a massive spike in viewership during the race. There will be multiple raids released throughout the lifespan of each expansion, and if more organizations broadcast their perspective during the World First race, World of Warcraft may begin to grow as a uniquely event-based esports title.

One other game worth examining is Fortnite’s primary battle royale competitor throughout the year: PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds (PUBG). PUBG began the year in fourth place, falling two spots in the second quarter as Fortnite replaced it. However, in Q3 the game remained stable at number 6. This is largely due to PUBG Corp.’s increased involvement in and commitment to esports. In Q2, PUBG awarded $1.1M in prize money across 19 tournaments. That number grew to $4.0M in 24 tournaments during Q3. While Fortnite has certainly overtaken it as the dominant battle royale game on the market, PUBG managed to carve out a niche for itself.

However, the most important indicator of PUBG’s ability to survive will be its Q4 impact index. October saw the release of another massively popular battle royale title on the streaming platform: Call of Duty Black Ops 4 . The new game even outperformed Fortnite during the first week of release. As a result, many of the top PUBG streamers have begun to split their time between these newer battle royale games, or drop PUBG from their streaming schedule altogether. While Call of Duty viewership has fallen since the game’s release, this development could cause PUBG to drop a few more spots when the next ranking is released.