Garena Free Fire was named the most watched battle royale title of 2021, beating Fortnite Battle Royale by 60 million views.
The world of mobile games and esports is growing rapidly with each passing day. And the battle royale genre is currently at the forefront of mobile gaming, with massive viewership numbers across all streaming platforms.
Games like Garena Fire Fire, PUBG Mobile, and COD Mobile have become the torchbearers of mobile esports, generating staggering numbers.
Garena Free Fire defeats Fortnite
According to a recent report by popular analytics firm Stream Hatchet, in October 2021, Garena Free Fire became the most-watched battle royale title of 2021, with 1.08 billion hours viewed. The mobile battle royale title beat the popular Epic Games developed Fortnite in this race by a margin of 60 million. Fortnite has racked up 1.02 billion viewing hours across all major streaming platforms.
Acquisition of Garena Free Fire
In the first four months of 2021, Fortnite beat Free Fire in terms of viewing time. However, things changed in May when Free Fire’s viewership skyrocketed and since then for the past 6 months it has remained higher than Fortnite.
A major factor contributing to this takeover is the Free Fire World Series: 2021 Singapore, which was held in May. The event made history by becoming the world’s most watched esports tournament, garnering 5.4 million concurrent viewers and shattering the previous record of 3.9 million set in League of Legends: Worlds 2019.
Much of the audience came from the Hindi stream, where the audience peaked at 1.9 million, even when none of the teams from India and other parts of South Asia took part in the championship. due to COVID-19 restrictions banning travel from South Asia to Singapore.
Com a tropa é assim: quando bate a meta, a gente dobra a meta! O #FFWS bateu o recorde MUNDIAL de audiência nos Esports, foram 5,4 milhões de espectadores simultâneos! 🔥Sem vocês isso não seria possível, valeu a todos que acompanharam. https://t.co/1D20CbEq10
However, in terms of viewing hours among the 16 languages in which the World Series was broadcast, the Portuguese language emerged victorious. The Portuguese stream represented 25.9% of the total hours watched, followed by the Hindi stream at 22.5%.
Free Fire has been very popular, especially in parts of South America and India, where Free Fire related content and esports tournaments are bringing in staggering numbers.
Two of India and Brazil’s most famous Free Fire content creators, Total Gaming and Nobru, have 29.5 million and 13.1 million subscribers on their YouTube channels, respectively. This puts them in the elite list of the world’s most subscribed gaming channels on YouTube.
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Free Fire, in its endeavors, has also won numerous awards. The title received the Mobile Game of the Year award at the 2020 Esports Awards. Again this year, the title was nominated in two categories at the Esports Awards. Going forward, it would be intriguing to see what new records this mobile title breaks.
