SuperData: Fortnite Hit Especially Hard By Lack Of In-Game Spending

Fortnite is bringing in less money than it ever did before, but it's still more than most other free-to-play (and non-free-to-play) games out there.

That's the news from SuperData, whose latest blog post led with "Players aren't spending on Fortnite like they used to." In the report, SuperData said that in-game conversion for Fortnite has dropped from 30% and 36% on PC and console in September 2018 to 16% and 10% respectively in September 2019. No figures are given for mobile spending, but overall, 8% of players paid for additional in-game content in Fortnite.

Assuming that those terms -- "conversion" and "in-game spending" -- mean the same thing, that would mean that most games are struggling to get dollars from in-game purchases overall. According to the chart below, Fortnite is actually among the best at getting players to spend money on in-game purchases:

Apex Legends' standing at just 2% is likely worrisome for a game that started so strong but has really struggled to keep up in recent months. League of Legends is also at 2%, but that might be because it's so old that most players have already bought everything they need. As for Destiny 2, these are numbers from September, before it went free-to-play. In both cases, the low conversion rate might explain their recent moves: Destiny 2 going free-to-play and Riot announcing some new games.

You can read SuperData's complete report here.