[sombremesa]

> They swithed to battle royal and made one of the most played video game of all time.

More specifically, they saw the success of PUBG and decided to copy it immediately. I suppose that still counts as a successful pivot!

[srcreigh]

You'll have to follow the popularity trail further back to early 2010's Minecraft hunger games servers.

(Rather I suppose the popular 2008 book The Hunger Games.)

[Handytinge]

I mean if we're doing this, you can probably go back to the 1999 Japanese book "Battle Royale", which lent its style to the popular UHC Minecraft mod well before "The Hunger Games" mods came out.