
Fortnite was 2018’s most important social network - Tomte
https://www.theverge.com/2018/12/21/18152012/fortnite-was-2018s-most-important-social-network
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whatshisface
> _This thing is here to stay, as a new kind of social network._

I have a seriously hard time buying "socialization in online games" as _new_.
In fact Fortnite is a lot less like a social network than other online games,
because the interactions are more sporadic and disconnected than for example a
raid group in classic WoW cira 2007.

~~~
Klathmon
I think the biggest difference is that now it's mainstream.

Back in the early 2000's online games were played by a faction of the
population that plays them now. They were fringe, and having "online friends"
was consitered to be weird and strange by most (I heard this plenty as my 2
closest friends I only met in person for the first time at my wedding in 2014!
After having known them for almost 10 years at the point, and I heard plenty
from even family about how it was "a bit weird").

That feeling has changed over the last few years, and now "online friends" are
just friends, and the games themselves are actually almost the secondary
reason many people play them. The primary being to hang out with their friends
online.

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alan_wade
How do people end up finding friends online? I spend 90% of my time online, I
post on forums, but I didn't end up making even one lasting online
relationship. It seems like a fun thing to do though, how does that usually
happen?

~~~
saurik
How old are you? Like, serious question: if is a generally reported experience
that people start to suck at randomly making friends as they approach 30.

~~~
anyfoo
Age does sound like a likely explanation. When I was younger, I made friends
online pretty much the same as offline: Some people I just got along with very
well, at some point hung out and talked with them more consciously (online or
offline or both).

Now that I'm older, that barely happens. Online or offline, even while I do
meet new people and some friendship forms on some level, a certain distance
remains and things often stay confided to a particular function (lunch group
at work, people in an online group).

I first tried to fight it, but now I suspect that I'm just more interested in
furthering the relationships that I already have, instead of making room for
new ones.

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ethbro
I was thinking about this recently and decided it's probably another culprit:
we're less tolerant of unexpected and different things as we get older.

That seems kind of essential for younger-esque 'Hey, stranger who I know
nothing about? Want to spend a lot of time together?'

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DC-3
Fortnite is not 'here to stay', at least, not as a mainstream product. It
occupies the same position in the market that Minecraft did 6 or 7 years ago
for pre-teens. In time, the bulk of Fortnite players will start going to
parties, having to study for exams, and trying to talk awkwardly to girls, and
the userbase will fall off a cliff.

~~~
cuban-frisbee
If it really is like minecraft then it will still be here in a decade.
Minecraft had 74 million active players last december out of the 150 million
copies sold over the games life time. That is a stagering retention rate for
an industry that is all about the next big things.

~~~
canofbars
Its not even close to what it was back 5 years though.

~~~
nearbuy
It's higher than it was 5 years back. The article states it's the all time
record for Minecraft.

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tbihl
My wife is very good about keeping up with old friends from back home; me, not
so much.

Over the past year, I've been semi-consistently playing weekly fortnite
sessions with three old friends, and it's been great. It's something we all do
and laugh at while we're on a group phone call together, and it's good for an
hour of relaxing and talking on a Sunday night.

The fact of it being free is important because none of us play outside of
these gatherings (making the large-download updates problematic when they show
up.)

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jeremyjh
I played Eve Online (way too much) a decade ago and there developed some
friendships that are as real as any I've ever had.

Fortnite I've only played with my son, for an hour or two a week. Sometimes a
friend or two of his will join us but usually its just the two of us. Its been
pretty cool to share this, but I'm a little skeptical that overall its really
representing something new. Yes, maybe its more mainstream, but it is also
much more limited than other environments, because you can only have four
people in your party. What if your buddy group is five or six? There is really
no practical way to play together.

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Waterluvian
I'm more inclined to see this as:

Fortnite is super popular among humans.

Humans are very social animals.

Fortnite sees a ton of social activity.

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Reedx
I used to play a _lot_ of EverQuest with friends. At some point we realized it
was like an elaborate chatroom - a place to hangout just as much as it was a
game.

This is a big part of why Minecraft was worth buying for 2.5B. Minecraft
provides an endless wilderness to explore, modify and hangout. Particularly
powerful with kids since that's something they're no longer allowed in the
real world.

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ThomPete
I would say the same thing was the case for a game like World of Warcraft.

The big advantage of game-based social networks is that they have a purpose
which means they have a constructive goal which is shared among the players,
plus they have rules for how to win.

I would rather that my kids spend time in Fortnite than on Facebook.

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cheschire
I believe fortnite is popular because battle royale suits the streamer model
of high community interaction during the buildup phase, and then opportunities
to display significant technical prowess during the late game.

If streaming starts to lose popularity, fortnite will too.

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40acres
I haven't played Fortnite, but from what I know it took a somewhat resurgant
form of gameplay (battle Royale) and added some innovations to great success.

I can see Fortnite having a multi year run, but gaming is a completely
different medium to a traditional 'social network'. Maybe this says something
critical about social networks, mainly the fact that a successful social
network must be oriented around passive consumption rather that active
participation.

I'm sure folks watch Fortnite videos online and live streams, but I get the
sense that a large number of folks have spent more time playing that watching.
You cant really say that for most other social networks, especially when you
remove 'power' users such as influencers and brand accounts.

~~~
Namrog84
But even traditional social networks change and shift and dont really last the
same way. Facebook has had some lasting power but it has decreased and died in
many ways. Vine. Snapchat. And many other things have taken huge chunks of
mine shares. While Facebook owns or buys some of them. Most more traditional
social networks I'd argue also aren't really lasting things either. They are
probably longer half life and slower churn than a gaming social network but
other than the half life they suffer same problems.

~~~
40acres
True, eventually these platforms will either die or innovate to the point
where their original implementations seem distant.

My bigger point is regarding the nature of a gaming platform vs. a more
traditional feed based app as effective social networks (when it comes to
lasting power and monetary ability mainly), even the best video games have a
flash in the pan nature that makes it difficult to see the MAU increase in a
way we've seen with feed based networks.

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olliej
It’s interesting to me in that it gets people together as a product of a
combined interest rather than just united in over-sharing.

That said I feel like most game based social networks seem more transitory
than the purely “social” networks. Not out of any inherent inferiority but
more just as a product of the general nature of games

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shiburizu
Title should say Discord instead of Fortnite tbh. Nobody needs to be explained
the gargantuan presence of Fortnite but where there's a game of Fortnite,
there's a Discord server.

I find that gaming serving as a social space is not a new concept in any
capacity.

~~~
goobynight
Games as a social space aren't new.

Games that attract nearly everyone, even in just some age groups, to one
social space are rare.

You won't be joining say...an "EVE Online" discord unless you have bought the
game and want to play it. Fortnite is as free as Facebook and is at critical
mass for many groups. It ends up becoming the lingua franca of gaming
socialization.

~~~
shiburizu
League of Legends and GTA5 come off the top of my head not including other
examples mentioned here. Culture phenomena videogames have come and gone, this
time Fortnite just has a bigger marketing campaign.

Discord is definitely not even a space dedicated to games either (I don't
think your EVE example holds up), it's just where people gather to play games
and end up using it for everything else too. Everything you've mentioned still
definitely applies to a Discord account, free like free beer and the envy of
so many other chat platforms.

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trumped
CSGO added a Fortnite/battle royale mode ... I wonder if it had any impact...

~~~
lbotos
the "bigger" play for CSGO will be the "free-to-play". I'm trash as CS, but
it's my game of choice. Valve has been doing a ton to keep the game fresh this
past year

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trumped
that's great to hear, I didn't realize it was now free to play (I like that
the skins don't improve your gameplay but still give them a revenue source...)

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wslh
I started being scared when I found many kids having tics from Fortnite steps.

~~~
Operyl
I have a nephew who will mess with his brother, and play these at random from
a Bluetooth speaker in their house. It is interesting, and is probably already
making for an interesting study somewhere.

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pkamb
Nintendo, also in 2018, removed the "taunt" dances from their most popular
online game. The only way to communicate is now to teabag.

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anigbrowl
'My favorite' != 'most important'. I'm glad the author is having a good time
combining socializing and gaming but this is a nonsense article.

