New data from Google Trends suggests that Minecraft is on the rise and becoming more popular worldwide than Fortnite Battle Royale. But, what does it mean for Epic Games’ title?
Fortnite is quite simply a gaming phenomenon, breaking records all over the place and attracting attention from all corners of the globe. It helps that Epic’s popular game is free-to-play – meaning that anyone with an internet connection and gaming device can get their hands on it.
However, in recent weeks, this popularity has slowly slipped as players have vented frustrations about new updates and weapons despite the build-up to hugely anticipated World Cup. In fact, the decline has reached such a point that it has been overtaken on Google by another gaming phenomenon.
According to new data from Google Trends, Minecraft has once again surpassed the battle royale rival as a Worldwide trend – racking up a growth for the first time since 2017. However, it still lags behind its massive peak from the summer of 2013, where it reached a trends score of 100.
However, unfortunately for Minecraft, the sandbox game still falls behind the battle royale title in the North American market. The free-to-play giant holds a slender one point lead over the game despite falling off somewhat worldwide.
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Why is Minecraft so popular again?
Now, of course, this doesn’t mean that Epic Games’ battle royale title is immediately going to lose its massive player base to Minecraft and fall off the face of the earth. In fact, there are probably a few reasons for the rising popularity of Minecraft.
One explanation behind the uptick in searches for Minecraft could easily be the fact that a new spin-off game was announced at the recently wrapped up E3 event and that has sparked interest from players.
Another could simply be that the player base that remains are searching out new downloads like mods, skin packs, and online servers to expand their experience – leading to Google picking up on the growing interest.
It remains to be seen if Fortnite Battle Royale can regain top spot from Mojang’s once massively popular title, or if Minecraft is really back on the rise and the year 2013 is happening all over again.