After generating a lot of intrigue via its black hole event, interest in Fortnite Chapter 2 is beginning to dwindle.
During Fortnite's two years of existence, it has managed to take the world by storm and set all sorts of viewership records in the process. Just look at its first-ever World Cup that took place earlier this year. When totaling up all of the hours watched across the qualifiers and the finals over all platforms, Fortnite fans tuned in for a total of more than 80 million hours.
The start of Chapter 2 ushered in some more impressive numbers, reports The Esports Observer. Fortnite fans watched the game across various platforms for more than 6.5 million hours on Chapter 2's launch day. Yes, that did include millions of hours of staring at a black hole waiting for something to happen. Season X's opening day only racked up 3.79 million hours.
As for the days that followed, viewership numbers didn't make for such great reading for Epic. Despite the black hole event breaking Twitch's Fortnite viewership record for a single day, viewers lost interest once the new map finally arrived. Fortnite was watched for 19.55 million hours during Chapter 2's first week. That might sound impressive, but not so much when compared to other big weeks in Fortnite history.
Season 6 launched more than a year prior to Chapter 2 in September 2018. Fortnite fans watched people playing the game for 22.89 million hours total during Season 6's first week. The opening of any season is big for Fortnite, but the launch of a whole new chapter? Epic would have almost certainly been hoping total hours viewed topped the 25 million mark, but no dice.
Epic can attribute its dwindling viewership number to a couple of things. Number one is that people are starting to become disillusioned in Fortnite. The game might be a big deal but nothing lasts forever. The number of players it upset during Season X will also have taken its toll on interest. Plus, on top of all that, Ninja is no longer streaming Fortnite on Twitch. As the platform's leading streamer before he left, Ninja accounted for a lot of those millions of hours.
Source: The Esports Observer