Everyone wants a piece of the battle royale action. Fortnite‘s free-to-play model has resulted in some serious dividends: $1 billion comes from in-game purchases alone. The average player is spending $84 on the game. Fortnite isn’t the only battle royale game that’s finding success, of course. In fact, a Statistica report, based on figures provided by SuperData Research, recently claimed that battle royale games are expected to rake in $20 billion in revenue next year. The hype is real, and it’s tempting.
Many of us expected battle royale to be a major focal point at E3 2018. It wasn’t quite that big, but there were still a few mentions of it, especially regarding games with a battle royale mode. Among those announcements was the reveal that EA’s upcoming big franchise shooter, Battlefield V, would feature a battle royale mode. Will they publish a standalone battle royale game themselves? Blake Jorgensen, EA’s CFO, made the following statement in an investor call on July 26, 2018.
We’re interested in experimenting with a free-to-play standalone game that might be in a shooter genre or another genre, but I don’t think that’s how we’re looking at the Battlefield stuff right now.
This suggests a possibility that EA will either put a spin on the existing genre or try to use the free-to-play model to find success in a different type of game. Time will tell what EA ends up doing, but they might want to get in on the battle royale trend sooner, rather than later. New battle royale games are constantly emerging.
