I think the key word in that quote is popularized — even if earlier games did it, these are the two to demonstrate widespread appeal.
Minecraft (hunger game mod) > DayZ/H1Z1 > PUBG > Fortnite
At each step, the genre grew by 1 or 2 orders or magnitude. So while Fortnite is by far the largest BR game now, if you look at the log-graph, they each had an almost equal impact on getting to where we are today and are an important part of the genre's history.
Edit: Oh I just looked it up. The mod was PUBG. I just realized it was the same guy who made it. It was released as a mod for Arma in 2015 by a player who went by the handle "PlayerUnknown". So I guess it was after the minecraft mod.
PUBG proved out the incredible appeal and potential of Battle Royale. Despite being a technical mess, it was a massive success and a game changer for the industry. It was the key catalyst and why Fortnite (and many others) added the mode.
This is not to take anything away from Fortnite though! They absolutely took it to the next level of awareness.
Minecraft had nothing to do with it. PU was inspired by the Battle Royale novel/movie and The Running Man. He forked the Day Z ARMA2 mod and made DayZ: Battle Royale, and that predates H1Z1 KotH by 3 years.
That's really downplaying the success of PUBG though. It was the #1 most watched game on Twitch before Fortnite overtook it. Sure, Fortnite is more popular now, but PUBG was literally the most popular game at the reveleant time.
Internet was hardly available in the year 2000. It takes a lot of bandwidth (and probably CPU too) to run a 100 players FPS. It wouldn't do well before broadband got ubiquitous, almost a decade later.
That doesn’t change the fact that BR predates the hunger games (though the author claims to not have heard about BR when she wrote the hunger games).
BR is supposedly about how the old of japan are metaphorically sacrificing the youth. The hunger games was (according to an interview) about reality tv meets the war in Iraq.
I see that minimaxir has been downvoted so it seems "mainstream" has different meanings.
I don't play video games and don't keep up with them. I've never heard of PUBG. But nevertheless, I did hear about Fortnite. Why? Because a business analyst on Youtube did a business case study[0] about Epic Games and the development history of Fortnite. That was unusual because he typically analyzes non-game companies[1] like Amazon, Uber, Stripe, GoPro, Theranos, etc.
My point is that there must have been a noticeable step change in popularity level between PUBG and Fortnite such that it entered his consciousness and justified a business case study from him -- which in turn entered my consciousness. If "mainstream" isn't the right word to use to describe Fortnite's greater reach to non-gamers, I don't know what a substitute word would be.
Also, I know what the "floss dance" is and that it's in Fortnite. If PUBG or other video games have named dances, I don't even know of their existence.
Now, I do agree with you, but more to do with your point about the flossy dance, since seeing stuff from games leak into real life consistently is pretty mainstream.
Fortnite became a place for people to hang out: https://twitter.com/anoopr/status/1071921080485457920
My brother, a college football player, plays it. My sister, an Instagram addict and high schooler, plays it on her phone while shopping at, I dunno, Forever 21 I guess.
This is new, and worth paying attention to.
GTA V is the top grossing game of all time and sold 90 million copies on 3 platforms. Minecraft has sold 150 across way more platforms and has been around way longer.
This isn't about video games anymore, it's about tapping into something bigger. Even Minecraft couldn't crack into the market segments Fortnite has.
Almost single-handedly? This is a bizarre claim and it's like rewriting history.