What to Expect from PUBG Twitch Viewership in 2019 after 2018 Hosted Fortnite Stardom

The fresh and juvenile style of Fortnite has clearly helped surpass PUBG’s realistic appearance in terms of popularity in 2018. This last year can be considered a breakout year for battle royale video games in general, positioning among the most-streamed and watched genres in the industry; this favored PUBG online betting become a trend among the fans of this online deathmatch game.

Nonetheless, PUBG faced an important pair of issues that stopped the realistic online deathmatch game from increasing its popularity:

The unprecedented growth of Fortnite as the most popular battle royale game in the market.

Some problems reported in the servers, mostly caused by the countless skin variations uploaded by Epic games. (You can also bet on skins.)

However, these couple of issues weren’t enough to stop PUBG from turning into one of the most-watched games (4th position) on the popular streaming platform Twitch in 2018.

The realistic battle royale game is still one of the most famous online games, and it has the support of top streamers from different countries. Although some may say 2018 was a sad ending for PUBG’s best opportunity, it can also be seen as the beginning of Fortnite’s nemesis stardom in the competitive scene.

PUBG’s Impressive Numbers

In its second year, PUBB has recorded millions of hours of streaming. This is a list of the most remarkable numbers related to PUBG you’ll see:

In 2017 the game accounted for over 480 million hours watched. In 2018 the number of hours watched didn’t reach 400 million, but it was very close, despite the boom Fortnite had and the influx of other battle royale games such as Call of Duty. After the new map was released (on April 3) the number of watchers raised to 3.3 million. Mike “Shroud” Grzesiek’s channel had the biggest number of views with over 39 million hours watched.

Professionalization of PUBG as an eSport

The last year was also very important for PUBG in terms of professionalism and its evolution to become a well-established game in the eSport scene. In the last year, there were numerous official tournaments as well as the ones planned by streamers. However, the competitive scene had many other changes like:

PUBG Corp. announced a 3-phase competitive season that is starting right now in January of 2019. Numerous regional leagues will spread during the year, and this is likely to increase the game’s viewership. It’s expected to see a considerable increase in the number of watchers and streamers due to an over-saturation of Fortnite’s streamers.

The importance of influencers and their impact in PUBG’s viewership

Personality streamers hold the torch in terms of PUBG viewers, being Beahm and Grzesiek the leaders. There were three important events related to the game’s viewership peaks and its links to influencers:

Beahm smashed the record of concurrent viewership (CCV) back in February, with a stream that hit 367 thousand viewers. The said record was surpassed by Tyler “Ninja” Blevins, the most popular Fortnite streamer when he streamed with the multi-platinum rapper and singer Drake. 12 of the top 20 channels streaming Playerunknown’s Battleground were not English-speaking channels. Representatives that speak languages such as Russian, Portuguese and Japanese. Meaning PUBG has great international appeal.

Although competing with Fornite’s popularity is not easy for PUBG or for any other title, it has demonstrated to cover a niche that attracts a big audience from all parts of the world.