Fortnite breaks records with holiday events

Key Points

• Fortnite recently saw a record of over 100 million players logging into the game over the course of November, and 44.7 million players log into the game in a single day at the beginning of November. 

• This record breaking performance was driven by OG Fortnite, a season of gameplay focused on classic Fortnite gameplay from earlier seasons.

• The following month saw a huge collaboration with LEGO and the start of a new Chapter coincide with the holiday season, building up to an annual peak in YouTube ad spend on Christmas day.

What exactly was Fortnite OG? Fortnite OG brought back content from Seasons 5 - 9 which originally debuted in 2018 and 2019.  Over time, the Fortnite map has seen huge changes with dramatic events like the destruction of Tilted Towers. While these events are exciting for players and help keep the game fresh, inevitably there will be players who prefer playing the map with content like Tilted Towers still in the game. The success of OG Fortnite seems to show that these players are not a small minority.

While the original seasons in 2018 and 2019 were months long, Fortnite OG packs each OG season (or two) into a single week, with all of OG fitting into November 2023. Every week, Fortnite players were able to experience dramatic events and changes to the map. Having new content every week in a game as massive as Fortnite is incredibly difficult, but it drives player engagement as players are eager to log in each week so they don’t miss classic content that might not appear again for years. This breakneck speed of fresh experiences is only possible because the content they’re using already exists. One might argue that Epic is simply rehashing old gameplay, but the players loved it.

Fortnite capitalized on the hype for Fortnite OG with a digital advertising campaign focusing on YouTube and TikTok starting on November 3, the first day of Fortnite OG. This first day was in the same range of other season’s first days in terms of spend, suggesting that Epic might not have been aware of how deeply Fortnite OG would resonate with its players in the beginning. Given that Fortnite recorded a record amount of active users just a day into OG, it seems safe to assume that this milestone was generated organically. Ad spend continued to increase over the next week, peaking on 11/9/23, at the start of OG’s Season 6 period, then falling dramatically on 11/14/23, two days before the end of OG’s Season 6. It seems plausible that a market saturation point was reached at this point. However, a secondary campaign was implemented towards the end of the season, peaking on the last day of November.

Fortnite wasn’t done, however. Fortnite Chapter Five: Underground began on 12/3/23 (Fortnite uniquely organizes its live ops calendar into year long Chapters, broken down into four season), and the massive LEGO Fortnite collaboration released only a few days afterward on 12/7/23. These huge events were followed up with the Fortnite Festival featuring the Weekend on 12/9/23, and multiple IP cosmetics partnerships, including Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Mr. Beast, and Dragon Ball Z. Many cosmetics included standard Fortnite and LEGO versions.

Let’s pivot into a look at the campaigns supporting these events.

Fortnite’s OG campaign continued for the entirety of November, with more than a third of spend during that time coming from YouTube. Other social networks were also leveraged, with TikTok and Snapchat also driving significant spend. Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram together received 30% of spend for this campaign. It seems YouTube remains the sovereign of digital marketing for midcore games like Fortnite, with social networks targeting a younger audience, TikTok and Snapchat, seeing solid investment as well.

Compared to the OG Fortnite campaign, the LEGO Fortnite campaign pulled back on Snapchat in favor of Instagram. Understanding why isn’t immediately straightforward. Both Snapchat and Instagram’s audiences skew younger, and 90% of Snapchat’s audience are also on Instagram according to a report by Hootsuite. Instagram’s wider audience might provide an answer, as Snapchat’s engagement falls off for users above 35 (also according to Hootsuite). While LEGO, as a toy brand, might consider children its primary audience, the venerable brand also has older fans and a wide audience of people who played with LEGOs when they were younger. It seems the nostalgia factor is a recurring theme with Fortnite’s audience, as it appears in LEGO Fortnite  and Fortite OG.

Zooming in on OG Fortnite’s YouTube campaign, 78% of Fortnite’s video impressions were 15 seconds long, with 30 second long ads taking up an additional 16% of impressions. 15 - 30 second long YouTube ads seem to be the sweet spot for midcore games. 15 seconds is sufficient to convey messaging and showcase gameplay while still being short and punchy enough to sustain their audience’s attention; this is the length many top 2023 midcore PC/Console launches ads utilized on YouTube as well.

Fortnite creative in November 2023 heavily promoted OG, with a custom OG logo and returned elements like Tilted Towers and the Grappler often highlighted. It seems that while Epic might not have fully understood the scale Fortnite OG would reach; they have a strong understanding of the classic elements Fortnite players from earlier seasons would recognize and resonate with. It seems likely that this campaign resurrected a huge number of former Fortnite players with the power of nostalgia. Will these players continue to play, however? According to fortnite.gg, player counts in December continue to be very strong, suggesting that OG players are enjoying the new LEGO and other content.

Another trend in Fortnite creative is showing Fortnite being played on devices like phones, laptops, and tablets. Some show Fortnite being played on Apple devices, and are even co-branded with Apple: an interesting partnership considering that Fortnite still isn’t on the App Store. In any case, these device focused creatives can show audiences precisely what action is desired, and the variety of devices in these ads showcases Fortnite’s cross platform capabilities and UI optimized for each device.

Of course, not all Fortnite players were happy with OG. Some feel that the season didn’t go far enough bringing back old content, as a lot of classic content failed to return. For example, several classic locations didn’t return, and Kevin the cube didn’t move around the map like he did in season 5. Other players were turned off by the removal of modern features like the ability to drive cars, especially players who enjoy Zero Build (a mode that removes the ‘building’ element of Fortnite, making the game faster paced and closer to a traditional shooter in feel). Still, it’s clear that Fortnite OG was a roaring success, which has fueled calls to add OG permanently as its own mode.

Fortnite OG has come in the midst of a marked trend for classic content in games. Three of the top ten grossing PC/Console games of 2023 YTD according to Circana were remakes: Mortal Kombat 1, Resident Evil 4, and Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 (which was released in 2022 but has continued selling strong into 2023). The Final Fantasy VII remake performed so strongly that it is getting a sequel next year: Final Fantasy VII Rebirth. Another example is World of Warcraft Classic, which players continue to pay subscriptions to play. There appears to be a huge demand for modern takes on classic experiences.

After OG ended, Fortnite tweeted the following:

It seems safe to say that we haven’t seen the last of OG, whether it returns as a future season or as a permanent addition to the game.

If you’ve made it this far, thanks so much for reading. If you have any further questions or comments, don’t hesitate to reach out. You can find the author, Sam Aune, on LinkedIN where he regularly posts mobile gaming insights from Sensor Tower.