‘It’s Almost Not Worth Being Number Two’ – How Live-Service Turned Games Into a Battle Royale for the Top Spot
The live-service trend has brought us some amazing games, but the chase for money-printing success means developers have become trapped in a bloody battle royale that's stifling creativity.
It's nearly impossible for any game developer to carve out their own piece of the battle royale market, which is now valued at $11.2 billion and expected to reach nearly $30 billion by 2035. The genre was ignited by Minecraft Survival Games, first launched by Norwegian YouTuber Dennis Vaeride in April 2012, and later popularized by Brendan Greene's PlayerUnknown's Battle Royale in early 2013.
The format quickly caught the attention of major studios, with Sony consulting Greene for H1Z1 and Bluehole offering him the chance to create his own project, resulting in PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds in March 2017. Epic Games then saw the potential of Fortnite, a tower defense game initially, and transformed it into a free-to-play battle royale by September 2017, achieving over 125 million players within a year.
This success created a frenzy among publishers, who have since attempted to replicate Fortnite's formula. However, many of these attempts have failed, demonstrating the difficulty of breaking into the battle royale market.
Written by urgent.news from IGN's reporting — not their text. Machine-written — may contain errors; check the original before relying on it.
