
Fortnite Is the Future, but Probably Not for the Reasons You Think - johnny313
https://redef.com/original/5c599eb966c7bb710656c824
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zemo
> Fortnite wasn’t designed to be a Second Life-style experience, or even a
> digital “third place“; it became one organically.

I don't even know what to do with this comment. All multiplayers games are
designed to be a third place, that's why they have groups that stay together
between rounds, integrated voice chat, and friend systems. Multiplayer games
have been designed to act as third places for ... a long, long time now.

> Epic has also built up another great and particularly hard to establish
> advantage: some 200MM+ registered user accounts.

I don't think that Fornite players as a group think that setting up a new user
account is a big deal. Having an account is not a particularly big point of
friction any more.

> Third is the threat posed by the shift to cloud-based gaming

do players actually want this? I've only heard that players want this from
"thought leader", technology speculator types. Never in my thousands of hours
of online gaming have I ever heard another player talk about this.

> they will be able to support Unity and other engines as well
> (interoperability will obviously be critical to any Metaverse and has long
> been a passion point of Sweeney’s).

this seems pretty divorced from technical and political reality.

~~~
lumost
I don't have access to any non-mac laptop - nor any computer with the hardware
required to play a AAA title. When an interesting title like shadow of the
tomb raider came out I was always put off by the sticker shock of buying a
~$1000 machine + desk + monitors that will take up a large portion of my
apartment, and be obsolete in 2 years. For what amounts to ~80 hours of
entertainment if I only play 2 AAA titles per year.

Trying out ParSec gaming was game changing for me and I've played 3 AAA titles
with max settings in the last 3 months on the same PaperSpace cloud I use to
do my personal ML projects. for a total cost of $30 in cloud credits, from my
MacBook air sitting silently on my lap.

~~~
Impossible
Another reasonable middle ground is buying a $300 console...

~~~
screye
Recently, this has become a reasonable option.

However, if one plays a lot of games then the difference of prices between
console and PC adds up.

~~~
jorvi
No they don’t. Assuming you ‘shop smart’. A PS4 slim 1TB on Amazon sale set me
back ~€200. PS+ goes for ~€40-50 a year, and gives you a few free games a
month. If you’re willing to buy secondhand physical and/or be patient, most
console AAA games can be had for €20-40 after a month or two. Hell, I bought
God of War 2018 on a PS store sale for €35 three months after release, and
that’s a premiere Playstion exclusive. Let’s say you put together a gaming PC
for €650 and buy AAA games for €10 a pop. We get the following situation after
3 years of ownership:

PS4 * €200 for the system * €135 for 3 x €45 for PS+ * €360 for 12 secondhand
AAA games €0 for ~7 good PS+ games (36 months x 4 PS+ games x 5% average
chance its a decent game) * €695 total cost to experience 19 games

PC * €650 for the system * €180 for 18 AAA games via Steam / Kinguin /
whatever * €0 for 1 AAA game free with your GPU * €830 total cost to
experience 19 games

Now at this point avid PC gamers will huff and puff that their games will
pretty much be eternally compatible, console gamers will gleefully point out
how you need to constantly fidget with your PC for optimal graphic / driver
settings on the PC, etc etc; Those are for yourself to decide. But purely on
price, a PC can’t compete with a console.

~~~
screye
But, everyone already has a primary computing device in a PC / Notebook (if it
has TB3)

The extra cost is only associated with getting the new GPU.

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dijit
The thing with fortnite is that it was free, available and nearly first. It's
success is a direct relation to the apex of those things together.

It's success will not be emulated even if better games (Like; Apex Legends
from Respawn/EA) come to the fore.

It's unwise to use their model because, like world of warcraft, it only really
works once or for one incumbent.

Fortnite works because "it's fortnite", it's already successful as hell, any
monetisation, even small amounts is enough to catapult it to profitability.

Time will see if I'm right or not, the industry is changing, large studios
need more money if they're to continue making AAA games and it's clear that
people begrudge spending $60 for a game and then having monetisation inside. I
hope EA's gamble with Apex works, not to prove me wrong but because I think
it's a good game.

Fortnite on the other hand.. I just don't get, the
combat/controls/graphics/hitboxes/animations are kinda dirt. But I think it's
popular because it's popular, like Paris Hilton.

~~~
scotty79
I think having 100 players play one actual realtime game well is
unprecendented technical achievement and Fortnight in relation to it is
similar for me as iPhone is in relation to actually working capacitive touch
screen.

In the world of games, being free (legally or otherwise) is pretty much
requirement of exorbitant organic popularity.

~~~
covercash
The original Starseige:TRIBES let you play with up to 128 players. It was okay
on dialup but my 10down/1up cable connection gave me consistent pings under
30. That was in 1999.

~~~
vvanders
Yup, that or my personal favorite Subspace where you had a couple hundred
players on 56k and everything was pretty snappy.

~~~
dvtrn
Subspace:Continuum ate up SO much of my time in middle school, I think it was
my first experience with online gaming. Great times.

You can still download it to this day:
[https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=14491...](https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=144913037)

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gnat
To save you reading: the article discusses and dismisses a lot of the hype of
Fortnite exceptionalism, and the author's basis for "Fortnite is the Future"
is that it's being used like Second Life, aka a social forum for people to
hang out as much as for gaming.

~~~
justtopost
I remember playing a lot of TF2 because it felt almost like socializing
compared to 'better' games. I think open, but also somewhat selective (vote
ban, mute) communication is the perfect app for our increasingly socially
disconnected population. The game is not just the game anymore, it is the
whole Arcade!

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treebeard901
> "indeed, the speed with which Battle Royale launched suggests the mode was
> in development well before Save the World had even launched"

The author might be missing an important part of the history here. PUBG and
Fortnite both use the unreal engine.

Part of the development of the unreal engine during this time was related to
adding features and performance improvements to the engine for a game like
PUBG.

PUBG had many performance problems originally and they did not seem to have
the technical ability or the access to make needed structural changes to the
engine. This means PUBG developers had to work with the unreal developers to
improve PUBG. It's entirely possible that the unreal developers used fortnite
and started converting it to a battle royale game at this time. They would've
needed a similar kind of game for testing the engine changes internally.

The next logical step was to complete the fornite BR mode and release it. Good
for Epic games, questionable outcome for PUBG. In a way, it is similar to
Amazon basics knowing what third party products are popular and finding a way
to put a cheaper clone in the marketplace.

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mattnewport
Interesting article but I think it somewhat misrepresents Epic's history and
overstates the extent to which they have primarily been an engine company.

Epic started as a pure games developer. They somewhat accidentally fell into
the engine business on the back of Unreal but turned it into a major part of
their business in a way that id did not despite similar interest in licensing
the Quake engine around the same era. They always continued to develop their
own successful games however (the article does at least mention Gears of War)
and in the past were sometimes accused of being more focused on shipping their
own games than supporting engine licensees.

They have always maintained a business model built both around successful in
house games as well as successful games from licensees. In this regard they
differ from a purely engine focused company like Unity who don't have in house
titles only licensees and engines like Lumberyard that have neither.

And cloud based gaming streamed to a thin client will always be a dumb idea
and will never succeed for similar reasons that thin clients in general never
take off but more fundamental. Games require low latency and it it will always
make sense to have significant compute on the client because physics.

~~~
redisman
Just the input lag through a network sounds horrible. Maybe if I had fiber and
the machine was located at my ISP or something it might work.

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ggregoire
Interesting time to release this article: EA just released their own battle
royale game (Apex Legends), and 10 millions people already played the game in
its first 72 hours[1]. Plus, the reviews seem to be unanimous about the
quality of the game. It got 300,000 concurrent viewers on Twitch right now,
vs. 140,000 for Fortnite[2].

Curious to see what's the future of Fortnite now.

[1] [https://www.ea.com/games/apex-legends/news/apex-
legends-10-m...](https://www.ea.com/games/apex-legends/news/apex-
legends-10-million-players)

[2] [https://www.twitch.tv/directory](https://www.twitch.tv/directory)

~~~
mhh__
Apex Legends is really good but it strikes me as more of a pubg-type game not
fortnite.

The Penetration fortnite has had across ages 10-20 is almost surreal.
Anecdote: I was playing Apex (and Siege, for balance...) and I can hear my
friends younger brother playing fortnite with his friends - across the room
-through the chat.

~~~
screye
An anecdote.

My 14 year old cousin visited this week and has already shifted to Apex
Legends... After months of being invested in fortnite.

Loyalty in non-rpg fps games is fickle.

No game may shine the way fortnite is in its peak for a while, but I do not
see it having the longevity that the industry believe it will have.

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thinkingemote
Theres been a wave of these articles and I think it's mainly due to the
journalists having grown up and having children who play computer games.

In other words, it's a topic of the chattering clases trying to understand the
youth.

~~~
PunchTornado
the youth?

everyone at my office plays Fortnite and we're from 30 to 50 years old.

~~~
andyidsinga
while I agree there are certainly adults playing. Web search of fortnite
demographics put A LOT (like a 50% or more at < 24).

My own anecdotal experience in squads is that half are probably teens. So -
the parent comment is certainly conceivable.

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mesozoic
From someone who's been following gaming for 30 years let me tell you Its
good, people like it for now, it'll be dwindled down in 2 years and something
new will be the hotness.

~~~
redisman
One game always rises to the top for a few years. Minecraft was the previous
one. I think it also has a lot to do with luck, people love to read too much
into a single success story and try to replicate it (cargo culting). Most
fail.

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lazyjones
The revenue per user calculation in the article seems wrong. 200 million
users, $318 million revenue per month = $18 per user and year, not $96. What
am I missing?

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andyidsinga
question: what makes hanging out in fortnite different from hanging out in a
popular new bar; and corollary : moving on to the new cool bar when it opens
up?

I've played a bunch of fortnite last year, even spent a bit of money on some
outfits and got a better mouse for builds - don't want to be a default ya'know
;).

It was "fun times" for sure - even met a few people I tried to play with
regularly if I saw them online. Ultimately, the fun factor sort of wore
off....next.

~~~
pram
For me it was the novelty of the experiences they added to the game. It keeps
it very fresh, especially with friends. For example when they added the
vehicles, it was hilarious and interesting for a bit. Then they added
balloons, which amazingly could also be used to float the vehicles. It allows
a lot of amusing creativity and makes the game fun even if you and your
friends suck.

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moneywoes
How does EA's F2P shooter compare?

~~~
lmedinas
In my opinion it's a brilliant game because the Game combines a vast number of
interesting mechanics from PUBG, Blackout and Fornite into a Free2Play game.
Not to mention that:

\- is way faster to get into the game by being much more optimized.

\- a typical game is between 15-25min, There are much less dead times when
compared to PUBG and Fortnite

\- The characters are fun and they bring an interesting approach to BR.

\- The ping system is great. You don't need to explicitly use Voice
communication. I've won a number of games without using Voice.

Give it try, its really a fun game.

