When Fortnite 
was in the early stages of asserting its dominance on Twitch , Turner “Tfue” Tenney’s stream wasn’t garnering much in the way of attention or viewership.
It wasn’t until he began racking up consistently strong performances during Daniel “Keemstar” Keem’s Friday Fortnite weekly online tournament that his stream blew up to the top 5 personality stream it is today.
Friday Fortnite was an influencer-driven event in which teams of two streamers would work together to get more kills in Fortnite than their opponents in public matches. In order to promote the event, every participant was required to stream their efforts to win the double-elimination competition.
As a result, Friday evenings became a game of viewership musical chairs on Twitch. Fans would tune into their favorite streamer’s channel, and once their favorite competitor lost, they’d funnel toward the remaining players until there were only a few streamers left dominating the evening’s viewership.
The series of competitions was unique in that it found a way to be competitive while also leveraging the personality-driven nature of Fortnite on Twitch, and once Epic Games began running its own esports events, the developer followed a similar model of allowing competitors to stream their perspective.
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Not only did the ability to stream increase the benefit of competing for high-profile influencers, but it also served to strengthen the reach of Epic Games’ Summer Skirmish and Fall Skirmish events.
From there, high-caliber competitors like Tenney became formidable gamers and were also allowed the opportunity to expand their brand and business as a streamer at the same time.
Cult of Personality
During Epic Games’ Skirmish events in the summer and fall last year, personality took precedent. Most weeks competitors streamed their perspective, and to promote the event, they would co-stream coverage on Epic Games’ Fortnite Twitch channel during breaks in their action.
Everyone was a winner. Competitors who made a living off of streaming didn’t need to stop their money making to compete, and Epic Games, in turn, received exposure for their esports events.
While the Fortnite channel itself didn’t always generate strong viewership for its events, the combined viewership of participants consistently made Fortnite the most-watched title on Twitch during skirmish events.
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Maybe the best way to help explain how influencers could drive viewership for Fortnite’s online events is by comparing the viewership of Tyler “Ninja” Blevins with that of Fortnite’s main channel. On weeks when Blevins participated in Skirmish events, his viewership typically outperformed that of the main Fortnite channel on Twitch.
Though Blevins is largely seen as an outlier, viewership that spread across Twitch among competitors during Skirmish events dwarfed the primary Fortnite channel’s viewership—until Epic hosted offline events.
Going Offline
Traditionally, esports events have been broadcast from a singular third-person perspective. The tournament organizer controls what you see of any given participant and hand feeds the viewers a narrative.
Though Epic Games has tried to follow an influencer-friendly model for its online tournaments, the server limitations of running a competitive, large-scale battle royale event online pushed Epic Games to experiment with offline, in-person events.
With a few Summer Skirmish and Fall Skirmish events being negatively affected by lag due to nearly 100 competitors being hosted on one private server, the developer used PAX West and TwitchCon as opportunities to host in-person events to conclude the Summer and Fall Skirmishes respectively.
Each offline tournament attracted significantly stronger viewership to Fortnite’s main channel as competitors’ streaming options during the event were limited or non-existent. Because Blevins didn’t play in the Summer Skirmish’s open-style finale at PAX West, he instead co-streamed the event and commentated from his personal channel, drawing strong viewership the first weekend of September.
Meanwhile at TwitchCon, numerous participants directly co-streamed the Fortnite channel’s coverage because they could not stream their point of view while at the event. The resulting viewership for influencers wasn’t nearly as big as it was when gamers could let fans in on their perspective of the competitions, but it served as a way to ease the burden of lost time streaming for some.
Striking a Balance
For games like Fortnite that are so dependent on influencers, esports becomes a catch 22 in this situation. Hosting tournaments online poses technical challenges that sometimes perverts the competitive sanctity of an event. But events held in person often prevent streamers from making a living.
All of the travel and time associated with getting competitors in one location can make the cost of attending in-person events outway its benefits for someone like Blevins or Tenney—even if they win.
As the trend of popular battle royale games continues with the recent rise of Apex Legends, event organizers will have to constantly weigh those costs and benefits of running online or in-person competition.
Shortly following Apex Legends’ release, Twitch Rivals, an influencer-friendly tournament organizer run by the platform itself, hosted an event for the title that received massive viewership on the channels of high-profile competitors.
However, once the title becomes more competitive and hardcore fans start seeking esports at its highest level, the logistical complications will present themselves in the same way.
While Fortnite is yet to choose one specific focus for its competitive scene yet, PUBG Corp’s PLAYERUNKNOWN’S BATTLEGROUNDS has moved toward a more competition-focused format with regional LAN leagues.
With Apex Legends showing the potential to be an up-and-coming powerhouse in the battle royale game genre, deliberating the pros and cons of hosting events online vs. offline will be possibly the top priority as battle royale games navigate making their influencer-reliant games into esports.
