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Netflix claims Fortnite is now a bigger competitor than HBO
- asaph 8y agoAnecdotally this rings true. However, I could easily see Fortnite being a fad. A year from now, I wouldn't be surprised to see the bulk of Fortnite's audience having moved on to something else. Remember Candy Crush? Pokémon Go? Words With Friends?
- alkibiades 8y agoThose are all still super huge. Just because they aren't the insane level they were once at doesn't mean they aren't still massive.
- asaph 8y agoI'm not saying Fortnite's audience will shrink to zero. I predict it will shrink though, just like the above mentioned titles that are shells of their former glory. The growth can't last. Maybe I should have said FarmVille or DrawSomething...
- ibra77 8y agoFortnite is a whole other beast, the game is out there for actually more than a year and is still kicking ass and being on top by a margin, none of the above was anywhere similar, and yet, they are still a thing.
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- root_axis 8y agoThat's true of every game and pretty much all of entertainment. Nothing stays popular forever.
- asaph 8y agoSome entertainment transcends time and just grows its audience perpetually. Think Star Wars, The Beatles, James Bond. Some things never go out of fashion.
- root_axis 8y agoI'm not seeing the connection. You are comparing franchines that have been repeatedly rebooted, remixed and recommercialized for decades to a single title released only a couple years ago. None of the things you listed "transcend time" in their original form.
- asaph 8y agoReally? Not even The Beatles? What about Picasso? Bach? Van Gogh? Gershwin? Miles Davis? All timeless. No reboot required.
- z3phyr 8y agoI dont know, they are known, but they are not a craze in the art world now. Nothing remains constant!! I generally interact with a lot of school students. All enjoy the current music, and some adventurous person has to go out of the way to even try the beatles.
- Godel_unicode 8y agoIn my opinion that's because the Beatles aren't actually that good compared with the body of music since. Don't get me wrong, in their day they were ground breaking, but there's a huge difference between newness (or perhaps novelty) and greatness.
- asaph 8y agoLet's agree to disagree on this one. IMO The Beatles' music is a high water mark in popular music unmatched before or since.
- peferron 8y agoIf Fortnite gets replaced by another similarly popular fad after a few years then people still aren't watching Netflix. That's what Netflix has to compete against. I'm quite sure that's how the quote is supposed to be understood—not that Netflix expects Fortnite specifically to be their top competitor for the next decade.
- smokeyj 8y agoWhich is another way to say that Amazon is their competition, considering Twitch's integration with Prime - and Amazons investment into gaming with Lumberyard and AWS. I suspect Unity was acting defensively against AWS with their license change, with Improbable caught up in the middle. Just speculation.
- bhouston 8y agoLumberyard is not that relevant in the gaming industry. And aws has had it for years.
- 0az 8y agoIf I remember correctly, Pokemon Go has pulled over two billion USD in revenue, and is growing. Reports of its demise are certainly premature.
- sincerely 8y agoIn 3 years, people will still be playing Fortnite, but nowhere near in the same quantities as today. I think you're missing the point of the post you're replying to.
- colmvp 8y agoSure but those people will be hooked with another game.
- taurath 8y ago1.4b In 2018 alone - a figure that staggered me
- alasdair_ 8y agoThat is a remarkably large amount of money for a three year old free to play mobile game.
- skinnymuch 8y agoWait it did more in 2018 than 2017?
- skybrian 8y agoAs another example, Minecraft apparently has about 90 million users 7 years after its release. Games for kids get a constant supply of new players, so it could be a fad or not depending on what else catches their attention. As was once said about Hollywood, nobody knows anything.
- soup10 8y agoAll video games have a shelf life. The experience gets stale, the hype dies down and people move on to something else.
- gsich 8y agoWith something else being another game. People don't switch interactive entertainment for non-interactive one.
- peferron 8y agoAre there studies showing that? Switching seems perfectly natural. If a good game comes out I'll play that. If a good TV show comes out I'll watch that. And since my free time is limited, if I pick one it means I'm not doing the other.
- gokhan 8y agoMy 12yo has grown out of Minecraft, but 6yo shows signs of growing interest. This week, she discovered redstone and pressure plates and went automating every door she can find in old builds she normally doesn't care much. Minecraft will have endless supply of users in the future, and when they're done with it, there will always be a next step waiting. That's why Netflix will always have trouble figthing with those.
- gamma-male 8y agoWhy would it be a fad though? League of legends, dota2, cs:go are all going strong
- dymk 8y agoMost things are fads. Few things stay going strong.
- puranjay 8y agoThe problem is that people playing Fortnite today won't move back to just watching Netflix in 3 years. They'll just jump to the next gaming fad
- gsich 8y agoAll those examples are trashy mobile games. They come nowhere near Fortnite in terms of quality and development effort.
- alasdair_ 8y agoEven now both Candy Crush and Pokémon GO are both in the top three mobile games by daily revenue - https://thinkgaming.com/app-sales-data/ https://thinkgaming.com/app-sales-data/
- sergiotapia 8y agoBut it is not the juggernaut it was at it's prime. I'll never forget that 4 to 6 day stretch when you would watch random people playing it on their phones. In parks, malls, supermarkets, Costco! It seemed like everywhere I went there would be at least 6 people playing it. I don't think I ever experienced something like that before. A really visual, tangible fad.
- alasdair_ 8y agoI miss those days, but I am so glad they happened. One of the most important days in my life.
- itronitron 8y agoHytale will pull some players from Fortnite when it is released, although it may not reach the same scale as Fortnite.
- taurath 8y agoIt’s interesting in a subscription environment that engagement is still seen as the primary draw. Clearly the bean counters have seen that if a user engages with the platform more than x hours per day/week/month they’re y percent more likely to keep the service. But this sort of implies that people only want the service when they are actively watching something - I wonder if there’s an a la cart opportunity there, if media was “rightly” priced in comparison to a binge watch on Netflix ($2 an episode is probably FAR too high). It still comes down to content - if you have something all the time that is new an everyone wants to watch, then you get to keep the money flowing.
- drb91 8y agoAll the ala carte options are too expensive. Itunes charges $6(!!!) for new rentals. It is trivial to find six higher quality movies in the $1 purchase bins at walmart and target or at redbox.
- taurath 8y agoRight - do if Netflix with a $13/mo subscription gets you 20 movies you want to watch vs $60+ ala cart, why wouldn’t there be a micro transaction type thing where those 20 movies are paid for at their actual value?
- drb91 8y agoHow do you calculate actual value if you aren’t even getting a resalable asset? Whatever the price is is evidentally the actual value. In this case, a recurring price. A la carte just doesn’t make sense with DRM; there’s no way to compete to determine a fair price.
- taurath 8y agoI really don’t know to be honest. I’m just wondering if there’s opportunity between the people who won’t commit to a sub but still want to watch at a price similar to a tightly managed sub.
- ralusek 8y agoThis is weird though, because I'm sure there's not a linear relation between "screen time" and "subscription retention," or at least I wouldn't assume so. And given that screen time actually results in server expenses, ideally they would almost want to minimize screen time while maximizing subscription retention. Compare this with TV, for example, where screen time = commercial time. I don't know where I'm going with this.
- lugg 8y agoIf I go from playing 1 hour of fortnite a week and 19 hours of Netflix to 19 hours of fortnite and one hour of Netflix you better believe I'm cancelling my Netflix sub. Between 1 and 19 is a flipping point for a significant enough of users that it concerns Netflix. Not sure what is weird about that. I doubt server / network costs, while significant for netflix are worth the trade for less viewership or the reduction to being in the mind of their users. Remember Netflix has ads too..
- baddox 8y agoI watch a decent amount of Netflix and have never seen an ad.
- sjwright 8y agoWhereas Fortnite is itself just a big ad for their in-game purchases.
- VRay 8y agoWhat country are you in? I've never seen a commercial on Netflix in the USA, Japan, or a few weeks in Europe. I guess there's probably some product placement here and there, and the auto-playing trailers are almost as obnoxious as ads?
- fyfy18 8y agoProduct placement is pretty common in Netflix's own shows, however they do it well so it doesn't feel like an ad. For example KFC in Stranger Things and Dunkin Donuts in House of Cards.
- r32a_ 8y agoNetflix might be regretting not buying out Twitch. I can see Netflix releasing "Netflix Original Games" or will they move more into game streaming first by paying famous gamers to stream exclusively on their platform, on that front will Netflix move into user-created content like YouTube?
- protomyth 8y agoI'm not certain it would be a good move. Its one thing to deal with a limited number of in-show-business creators that give you files to put on your CDN, but quite another to deal with many, many random approach creators who stream content with an unknown quality or controversial nature. It is a non-trivial expansion of their infrastructure.
- mav3rick 8y agoThey can still distribute games.
- seanp2k2 8y agoSee https://www.fool.com/investing/2017/12/11/why-netflix-isnt-interested-in-sports.aspx https://www.fool.com/investing/2017/12/11/why-netflix-isnt-i...
- pizza 8y ago> How does Netflix find ideas to create or buy original TV shows and movies? Netflix uses all of the following methods to find new content to buy or create: - Netflix employs a team of creative executives and buyers, who receive pitches for shows and movies. - Netflix has deep relationships with the creative community and talent agencies, who propose ideas for shows and movies. - Netflix may purchase finished works at film festivals or other established venues. - Netflix may generate an idea internally and hire writers or other creatives to develop those ideas further. [0] https://help.netflix.com/en/node/100386 https://help.netflix.com/en/node/100386
- alasdair_ 8y agoIt’s more than just this. House of Cards was made, in part, because of a whole bunch of data showing a certain demographic watched a lot of political thriller stuff and stuff with Kevin spacey in it (to massively simplify)
- shmerl 8y ago> Indeed, it's easy to see why Netflix considers Fortnite a main rival. The free-to-play title is available on almost every platform imaginable Not on Linux though (which is a good gaming platform today). Reminds me this: https://twitter.com/flibitijibibo/status/1079575301485723648 https://twitter.com/flibitijibibo/status/1079575301485723648
- iambateman 8y agoNetflix is wisely concerned about every other entertainment provider, not just TV or YouTube. A few comments have wondered about Fortnite being a bubble, which it certainly is. But keep in mind that Fortnite did something very similar to Netflix...they dropkicked an industry bent on selling blockbuster titles which just rehash the same content from the previous year. They upended the business model. So of course Fortnite will diminish in popularity over time. But Netflix knows enough not to dismiss their business model, their stickiness, and it’s implications for their future.
- idunno246 8y agoi was at a company that was acquired by disney. In the welcome speech, the person(Iger maybe?), asks us who we think disney's competitors are. Everyone thinks of the obvious ones, but the eventual point was that anything that takes a person's attention is competing.
- JoshCole 8y ago> But keep in mind that Fortnite did something very similar to Netflix...they dropkicked an industry bent on selling blockbuster titles which just rehash the same content from the previous year. They upended the business model. No, they really didn't. Fortnite did absolutely nothing new. They literally copied the models that were used by League of Legends and Player Unknown Battlegrounds, and many other games. Epic Games wasn't the kicker. They were the kicked. Fortnite's popularity is only an incremental step up from the games whose models they imitate. Right now as I type this the number of viewers for Fortnite is 168k. Dota 2 is as 118k. League of Legends is at 106k. At times, Fortnite is below rather than above these games. It varies. > A few comments have wondered about Fortnite being a bubble, which it certainly is. Bubble doesn't mean popular. It means speculation leading to inflated value not backed by real value. There are cycles fueling Fortnite's popularity. The biggest part of this has nothing to do with Fortnite itself and everything to do with people watching others play video games. It used to be that streamers had few people watching them. Now people can make millions because there are that many people watching. This utterly changes the content creation dynamic. It incentives good content, because good content gets rewarded with money. If you watched online streamers several years ago, many of them were awkward. These days, many of them could very easily be a radio host or walk out onto a stage and do comedic impressions. They are entertainers as much as gamers. Fortnite is just an incremental step in the virtuous cycle free to play games enjoy. Free advertising produced for good games by extremely talented content creators leading to more players and viewers.
- randomacct3847 8y agoI would imagine the main impact Fortnite has on Netflix is average screen time, not necessarily the decision whether or not to subscribe...
- freyir 8y agoYes, but people might have limited amount of time they spend watching entertainment. If that time's spent watching Fortnite, it becomes a harder decision to keep shelling out $10.99/month (or now $12.99/month) to subscribe to a service you're not using.
- Godel_unicode 8y agoThings like this make Amazon's purchase of Twitch seem ever more prescient.
- kevinventullo 8y agoI always figured that a lot of men my parents' age watched NFL because they played football when they were younger, so there's some vicarious enjoyment. When I was growing up, and I think this is even more true now, there were way more kids playing video games than football, and this was in the Midwest. The barrier to entry is just so much lower. So I think it's not impossible for streamed video games to one day be more popular than traditional sports.
- wyattpeak 8y agoI think there's a lot to be said for this. I just don't have the energy or time anymore to commit to sitting down and finishing a game, but I love watching them being played while I'm having lunch or something. I don't so much just sit down and watch the whole thing like a football game, but I think it scratches a similar itch. While the cat's probably out of the bag by now, if it were a service I had to pay for I likely would.
- rollinDyno 8y agoI think this is an accurate reading. I just want to add that in my personal experience, it's also easy to fall out of a fanbase due to the game having too much complexity thus making it too hard to achieve balance between competing mechanics. A case in point is League of Legends which has to nerf and buff their characters constantly and is always adding new characters which in turn spawn new imbalances, these changes can be too fast for the casual follower to understand the games as time pass by.
- Godel_unicode 8y agoThis is one of the places Rocket League truly shines. The only changes in the meta happen slowly, organically, and (almost) exclusively at the very high end. Low skill floor, crazy high skill ceiling, no randomness, no pay-to-win, short matches, and ELO-based matchmaking is the recipe for the perfect competitive sport replacement.
- usr1987 8y agoI would not know, since I don't use both. As of late I found in between HD antenna channels having better older shows than new crap. Heck with a ROKU I can see most all free or pay a small fee to rent some movies!
- rblion 8y agoThat is an amazing low-key insult.
- joemag 8y agoThe thing that bothers me about subscription based models is that there is a non linear relationship between value to the customer and revenue. At some inflection point, increasing the value customer gets out of the product does not result in new subscriptions. Wherein, in pay per use models, existing customers will spend more when they get more value out of the product. I have no idea how far away that inflection point is (there are 7+ billion of us, after all), and if this is even the right way to think about subscription based business models. But this is something that always bugged me about them.
- genbit 8y agonetflix keeps increasing prices, you can say that they increase price, because their value to average customer increases.
- partiallypro 8y agoTheir latest price increase is undoubtedly because their cash burn is really really high. Even despite their increase in prices they noted their burn rate would remain the same...which means they are spending a lot of money content.
- xiphias2 8y agoAt least I see some interesting new original content now. I wish they would try to create less, but more expensive content. The superhero series are for example boring for me because they are cheaply produced (I usually watch them _just_ because of the animations).
- mavhc 8y agoWhich superhero series? I wonder how long a show is worth something to them? In a decade they'll have 1000 series, can they slow down making shows then? Or do they need to make 5 hours of new tv every day forever? Does a 10 year old show attract customers?
- rsweeney21 8y agoEx-Netflix here. When I was there we had two metrics we cared about: hours watched and retention. Whenever we introduced a new feature we carefully measured it's impact on those two metrics. Ultimately, retention was the most important metric, but hours watched was a leading indicator for retention. I always had a bit of a moral dilemma working at Netflix because my goal was to get people to spend more time watching Netflix, which I didn't really think was good for humanity. Either way, it was nice having very clear goals. Netflix was a great company to work for.
- selestify 8y agoThat's more of a systemic problem, it's debatable how beneficial getting people addicted to Facebook, YouTube's next video, or any of a number of engagement platforms is to humanity. But everyone does it, and the ones that dont, don't make it so big.
- whatshisface 8y agoAn excerpt from the moral philosophy of Goatee Spock Evil Dimension: Littering, theft and pollution are also systemic problems that many separate actors contribute independently to - and no individual litterer, thief or chemical plant could solve the problem entirely by cleaning up only their own actions. That's why, for thousands of years, societies have agreed that litterers, thieves, and polluters are not culpable for their actions, and why no serious effort has ever been made to bring them to justice or discourage them. After all, you might complain when you see a mob boss using underhanded methods to get ahead, but cooler heads know that touchy-feely mob bosses don't get as far in their careers; they can't be blamed. In my opinion, anti-litterers tend to be over-idealistc academics with no grasp on the real world. If I were to stop throwing cigarette butts out my car window, I would have more cigarette buts inside my car. They must not realize this, I guess, because idealists don't go on road trips. Besides, if I don't cover a square inch of grass with a chip bag, someone driving behind me will. >everyone does it, and the ones that dont, don't make it so big. Socrates was famous for posing this argument at Greek garden parties. Eventually it took root, and that's why the Athenians (and all societies inheriting their legal tradition) took every law off the books. --An excerpt from the moral philosophy of Goatee Spock Evil Dimension
- TwoBit 8y agoSurely Fortnite is a fad.
- mamurphy 8y agoThe individual game is (very probably) a fad, but if/when it wanes in popularity, do those users resubscribe to Netflix or continue watching/playing games for their entertainment?
- mohankumar246 8y agoIt takes time for people to realize they could spend the time in better things in life Once they do/ get bored of the old stuff they move on... hopefully to something productive than passive consumption or winning imaginary trophies..xD
- peteretep 8y ago> hopefully to something productive than passive consumption Thanks for the moralising but I’m very safe for saying you have absolutely no insight into whether or not I’m watching a suitable amount of Netflix, how much it helps me unwind, and how I’m spending my non-Netflix time.
- pferde 8y agoAll work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- timwis 8y agoUm, how do they know what their customers do when they're not watching Netflix..?
- chx 8y agohttps://twitter.com/anoopr/status/1071921156687626240 https://twitter.com/anoopr/status/1071921156687626240 > the game is background noise. Fortnite isn't a game, it's a place. https://char.gd/blog/2018/fortnite-is-the-new-hangout-spot https://char.gd/blog/2018/fortnite-is-the-new-hangout-spot > Fortnite is different, because it's not even about the game at all: it's a place we're all going together. > Not only is Fortnite the new hangout spot, replacing the mall, Starbucks or just loitering in the city, it's become the coveted 'third place' for millions of people around the world.
- nazka 8y agoThanks a lot of that. It helped to understand better what I was seeing from far away.
- At1C 8y agoNot apples to apples comparing gaming to TV boxsets and movies, So what are they going to do buy up any competition like the rest of corporate monopolies. Bigger concerns for them on the horizon from decentralization platforms https://www.thetatoken.org/ https://www.thetatoken.org/ , plus A.I. algorithms, Netflix implements policy changes funnelling, and corralling users extracting data for venture funds requiring big paydays soon! Squeezing users for cash limiting devices using ip residential address, stopping friends sharing costs. Yes in the end they cannibalise themselves.
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- tubabyte 8y agoNetflix will probably join the videogame industry and, in a sense, has already started doing it with the interactive Black Mirror episode.
- kgthegreat 8y agoWhat happens when Netflix is the only profitable channel of distribution around by killing most competitors and then introduces regular ads?
- FrozenVoid 8y agoIts actually not that "Fortnite steals their users" its a collective shift from TV media to interactive content and especially streaming where users produce content for other users, such as livestreaming fortnite sessions.
- Avernar 8y agoI believe this. I've been very heavily into games before after being very heavily into watching TV shows and movies. I would always try to talk to my gaming friends about movies and shows and they would all basically say the same thing. "Who's got time to watch that stuff?" They were always so busy playing games that they didn't have hours every day to sit down and watch stuff. If Netflix could find a way to hook this demographic, they could expand considerably.
- EastSmith 8y agoWatching Fortnite streams on Twitch definatly ate some of my Netflix time (along with bad Netflix content). I am paying for Netflix, HBO Go and Amazon 'whatever they call it' and the fact that I am watching Fortnite streams means that these services just do not have good fresh content.
- hombre_fatal 8y ago> the fact that I am watching Fortnite streams means that these services just do not have good fresh content. I don’t think that follows at all. We most likely just do what’s easiest. Just like one wouldn’t suggest that there aren’t any worthwhile books or things to do in life just because you spent the day watching Fortnite streams or shooting heroin.
- brianberns 8y agoAmazon Prime Video
- ry0ohki 8y agoThey should really wait until Game of Thrones comes back before disregarding them.
- notsofastbuddy 8y agoA single six-episode season is going to tip the balance?
- ajmurmann 8y agoI wish they were to focus on the quality of the time I spend with the service rather than quantity. Time wrestling the UI for certain doesn't count. Time watching a show I forget entirely a month later..? I want to spend as little time possible and get the maximum value from it. I want my life to feel enriched from it. I don't want to feel like some junky who wastes they precious limited time addicted to mindless candy. Edit: I know eyeball time is a lot easier to measure. But figure it out! I hear Netflix has some good, talented people.
- Tiktaalik 8y agoIn the games industry I've heard discussion of the "real" competition being other forms of screen time for a very long time. Video games are a complex and involved way to spend ones time that requires a lot of commitment and attention in comparison to things like Snapchat, Netflix and Youtube.
- elif 8y agoThe fact that the first hundred or so comments here are just talking about problems with Netflix is a perfect illustration of a generational disconnect. The article is about fortnite becoming a leading entertainment category. This has far more to do with fortnite success than Netflix failure.
- itronitron 8y agoIt's also interesting that Microsoft had a one year lead on Fortnite after their purchase of Minecraft and missed, or passed on, that opportunity.
- bytematic 8y agoNot really, Minecraft is a completely different game and Epic made fortnite battle royale in ~month or less and it blew up. The base game was dead for about a year
- ezoe 8y agoThat reminds me of a story. A gossip magazine editor said, our competitor is not other gossip magazines, but a cup of coffee.
- ousta 8y agonetflix self produced content is 99% garbage or very low quality heavy dollar movies like birdbox or IO. the script, the acting, the story is a 20year stepback and it feels serve only one purpose: please self justice warriors, putting minorities in strong roles and calling it a movie. the metrics they use are laughable - it is not because everyone watched a movie with sandra bullock in it that the movie is any good. that was all that was available as new content for netflix users and the scarcity of content made them watch a shitty movie.
- nojvek 8y agoFor all the Netflix bashing going on here. Netflix has no ads in the middle when I watch a series. NO ADS. I’ll happily pay for HD content without ads. Have you tried amazon prime videos. Their app crashes my TV. Their streaming is garbage even though I pay for HD. HBO is the same. Netflix delivers for what you pay.
- ajinkyax 8y agoIn India Netflix is getting bigger. Doesn't change anything.