By Alex Norwood
Epic Games Inc. created the incredibly popular multiplayer game called Fortnite. Its wild success in past six months has made it a real force in the gaming world. Students among other gamers are spending endless hours in this alternate reality.
Fortnite was launched as an early-access game in mid-2017 and gained larger audiences since. This game beats out other Player verses Player games. “Fortnite surpassed PUBG’s monthly revenue and became a bigger game on YouTube than Minecraft for the first time in March 2018,” according to an article titled “Fortnight vs. PUBG- Player Count, Map, Mobile, Weapons, Graphics, Gameplay: Which is Better?” in PC GamesN, a video-games news website.
“Fortnite now has 45 million players and over three million concurrent users with the PUBG player count hot on its heels,” according to the article noted above.
In the game, players are loaded into a holding area and once the player count is at 100, they are put into a flying bus that goes over the map while players decide when they want to launch themselves into the game. Once on the ground, players must search the map for weapons while also destroying anything and everything to collect materials that can be used to build bases in the heat of battle. As the game goes on a storm pushes surviving players closer to each other for a faster finish. It’s every man for himself. The goal is to be the last man standing.
Inspired by mainstream movies such as “Battle Royale” and “The Hunger Games” Fortnite brings those worlds to gaming.
Many college students play Fortnite.
Eliezer Banner, CSN student who plays the game, said, “I feel like most people really like killing other players, which is fun, but I really like going across the map. Sometimes you run into a bunch of other players and sometimes you don’t.”
“I do mostly play solos though,” Banner adds. “I feel like I get better when I play by myself. It’s fun to play in a team but my friends usually end up carrying me to the win in the end.”
Ethan Blankfeld, CSN student, said, “I really like it. I think it’s the perfect game to play just for fun. There isn’t anything better to do with my free time right now. It’s great for late-night gaming, homework breaks and any other time I want to have fun that doesn’t take a long time to play. If I could play more often, I would.”
Every week there is a new in-game update that brings either new weapon or a different game mode.
“With every update comes a new strategy,” Blankfeld said. “One week I may want to use less materials so I can use the vending machines. The next week I may not worry about materials as much because I found a portable base bomb [port-a-fort]. These weekly updates keep you on your toes.”
According to PC GamesN website, globally 30.1 percent of core PC gamers played Battle Royale games in February 2018. Fortnite has 16.3 percent share of all PC players. Fortnite pulled ahead worldwide in part due to video services like YouTube and Twitch.
For example, gamer Ali-A has nearly 13 million subscribers on YouTube as of April 19. He has approximately 200 videos of him playing Fortnite with just over nine million views.
Another gamer Ninja is a Twitch streamer, which means he plays games while people watch live. According to an article titled “Ninja’s New Fortnite Twitch Records: Five Million Followers, 250,000 Subs, $875,000+ a Month” in Forbes magazine show how successful he is on this platform and how much money he makes.
Not all gamers play Fortnite.
Parker Sachs, CSN student, said, “I’m not really into that type of game. There’s so much going on and I would much rather play games that are simple. Before I could find something good, I was already dead and that was with half of the players gone already. If I can’t get a decent gun after the first 10 minutes then why should I play?” With a game that contains 100 players at once, this can be a common frustration.
Fortnite Battle Royal is still growing and there is no telling when the official and final rendition of it will be released. Skies are the limit and this is only the beginning of a great game and future games like it.
Coyote Student News at the College of Southern Nevada 