Valve released a fresh batch of Steam hardware stats last night, detailing the most popular components used by participating survey filler-inners. Surprise, surprise, Nvidia’s GeForce RTX 2080 and RTX 2080Ti are nowhere to be seen on its graphics card list. Instead, PC peeps seem to be doubling down on cards at the other end of the price spectrum, with the GTX 1060, GTX 1050Ti and GTX 1050 claiming the top three positions for a combined usage share of 29.12%. For the nth month in a row, the GTX 1060 (our best graphics card recommendation for 1080p and 1440p gaming alike) once again claims the lion’s share of that figure, sitting inside 14.29% of Steam users’ PCs. That’s an increase of 0.53% month-on-month, which is the second largest jump in ownership for the month of September. The biggest usage increase went to the GTX 1050Ti which rose a whopping 0.96% since August’s hardware survey to claim a total share of 9.7%. The regular GTX 1050, meanwhile, rose … [Read more...] about Nvidia’s RTX 2080 fails to make a dent on Steam’s September hardware charts
9 month growth chart
Fortnite is now the largest free-to-play console game of all time
Fortnite is a beast of Epic proportions. See what I did there? SuperData has published its digital games report for March, and Fortnite had quite a month. The game is now the largest free-to-play console game of all time, in revenue generated and monthly active users per SuperData. For the month of March, Fortnite generated $223 million across all platforms (console, PC, mobile), up 73% from February. Season 3 of Battle Pass, Drake, and the John Wick skin all “contributed to the massive growth,” said SuperData. The game bested PUBG in both revenue and monthly active users across all platforms. It also saw the “highest conversion rate” of any free-to-play PC game during the month. For the entire month of March, Fortnite: Battle Royal came in fifth on the free-to-play PC chart. It is also still the number one selling game on iOS in the US. Ubisoft’s Far Cry 5 sold an estimated 2.5 million digital units across console and PC for the month of March. On … [Read more...] about Fortnite is now the largest free-to-play console game of all time
Square Enix’s 15th Anniversary – The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly
Back in good ol’ April of 2003, a relationship developed between two companies: Square and Enix. Though rivals, they noticed something appealing in one another. Enix strictly published video games while Square focused on developing them with a team of programmers, graphic designers, and professional story writers. Since 2000, the idea of a merger had been discussed, but it took some time for the companies to commit to each other (for good reason, of course.) Sure, there were some bumps in the road and red flags, but the partnership of a developer and a publisher ought to be a clever move financially, right? It’s been a whopping fifteen years since the two tied the knot. Let’s take a stroll down memory lane and a gander at what the united company has endured since. Both Enix and Square were founded in Japan around the same time – Enix in 1975 and Square later in 1983. Enix was larger than Square and ensured buckets of money, but lacked success in … [Read more...] about Square Enix’s 15th Anniversary – The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly
Nearly a third of PC gamers are playing a battle royale game
Subscribe to PCGamesN on YouTube Update, March 27: A new report details just how popular the battle royale genre is these days. While the battle royale landgrab may be something of a running joke, there’s a reason why it’s happening. The success of PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds wasn’t a fluke if the similarly meteoric rise of Fortnite is any indication, and according to a new report nearly a third of PC gamers are playing some kind of battle royale. Get a fabled victory royale with our Fortnite Battle Royale guide. That report comes from analysts Newzoo, who say that 30.1% of PC players spent time in February enjoying the genre. Fortnite has a 16.3% share of all PC players according to the data, while PUBG has 14.6%. Other games including DayZ, H1Z1, and Ark: Survival of the Fittest are all much lower on the list, with far less than 5% each. Though it seems a chunk of players are enjoying multiple battle royales, since those numbers add up to more … [Read more...] about Nearly a third of PC gamers are playing a battle royale game
Fortnite’s biggest YouTubers are gaining one million subscribers a month
Just how big is Fortnite: Battle Royale on YouTube? Very. A new report from Let’s Play Index, a site that maintains statistics for different YouTube gaming topics and trends by pulling data from the YouTube API to update statistics and view counts, suggests Fortnite is basically the only game being played on YouTube these days. Approximately 1,700 Fortnite vides were uploaded to YouTube in the past week, Let’s Play Index reports, amassing roughly 226,376,777 million views in the process. Minecraft, the second most popular game on YouTube, generated 74,398,127 million views from 1,050 videos. Fortnite’s dominance on platforms like YouTube and Twitch isn’t surprising. The game has infiltrated just about every corner of YouTube, with vloggers and non-gaming creators finding a way to work Fortnite into their videos. As popular YouTuber Keemstar said on Twitter a couple of weeks ago, “Everyone is playing Fortnite; everyone. All other games are dead.” … [Read more...] about Fortnite’s biggest YouTubers are gaining one million subscribers a month