
Fortnite Pastoral - jbegley
https://desert.glass/archive/fortnite-reboot/
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MasterScrat
I am always surprised at how much hate and disdain I feel when I tell people I
enjoy Fortnite. This comes both from people who play a lot of video games, and
from those who don't play at all. Somehow, it's become "cool", or maybe even
the "default", to hate on Fortnite.

~~~
Karunamon
I've probably been guilty of that on more than one occasion and can explain
2.5 reasons why.

1) Battle royales suck. The entire genre. I grew up on arena shooters - your
Quakes, your Unreal Tournaments, and so on. Getting booted all the way back
out to the lobby to go through deployment again because of a single death _isn
't fun_. It's making me replay the most boring aspect of the game. Call me
when there's a popular one of these which has multiple lives or some other
mechanic that ensures a single mistake doesn't result in ~5 minutes of being
unable to play the game. I don't have the time or the patience for this.

2) Fortnite's success killed two games I was really interested in - Paragon, a
_gorgeous_ third person MOBA, and a reboot of Unreal Tournament.

Those first two are very concrete and have nothing to do with tribalism. The
last one is a bit murkier:

2.5) Fortnite seems to be aggressively marketed towards children, which means
its players are probably disproportionately children. Minecraft had this
problem too, but it had a single player mode and private servers which allowed
you to sidestep it.

That one probably carries the whiff of "kids these days", but when you
consider that the game is going to be designed to cater to the average
player...

~~~
pierrebai
These are not reason to diss people who enjoy it. They're merely reasons why
you don't personally enjoy it.

(I'd like to point out that you can setup games with your friends where you
don't get booted out for dying.)

~~~
laumars
Is he "diss"ing people who enjoy though? Or just expressing why he personally
doesn't enjoy it? It read more like the latter to me.

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FussyZeus
Articles like this fall into one of two categories: either paid promotion by
the author, or the author's unwitting corroboration of Epic's marketing with
this game.

Since the beginning Fortnite has positioned itself as a social space, in
itself this is not a problem. However, the ability to perform socially is
monetized in an otherwise free game. This is emotional and social manipulation
at it's finest, and contributes to why Fortnite honestly frightens me as
someone who enjoys games.

The marketing for this game has been incredible. In-game events featuring
real-life artists. Weekly events which push the dev team to the limits of
crunch what has to be almost every day. It pervades any space relating to
games. It's presence is unrelenting. It's designed from it's core to have as
much mass appeal as possible and the barrier to entry is downloading Epic's
launcher, so naturally it's popularity is off the charts.

It's the epitome of "designed by committee." It's soulless. It's success was
bought and paid for by TenCent and I'm assuming the investment is at least
doing okay, considering how much money they continue to pour into it.

I don't hate the game itself. It's aggressively "okay." Nothing mindblowing
and certainly nothing meriting the response it's gotten. The response is
almost entirely down to the marketing, and I don't like everything else about
it. I don't like how it's shoved everywhere imaginable via advertising. I
don't like the by-the-numbers merchandising. I don't like the fact that
"default" is now used like a slur in schools for the kids whose parents won't
buy them digital crap.

I just... I hate this. All of it. I don't know why to a great extent, it just
bothers me.

~~~
save_ferris
> It’s the epitome of “designed by committee”

I disagree with this, Fortnite figured out how to deliver a video game in an
agile way.

The techniques developed around building and combat are top-notch, the game
manages to feel very challenging without being miserable to play. It might not
be your cup of tea.

> I don’t like how it’s shoved everywhere imaginable via advertising

Not Epic’s fault. You can thank the tech industry for figuring out how to put
ads on everything, I don’t see how this is Epic’s fault. Don’t shoot the
messenger when your problem is with online ads.

> I don’t like the fact that “default” is now used like a slur

Again, Epic didn’t make those kids shitty. When I was a kid, it was all who
had which Pokémon cards, the fact that the goods are digital now doesn’t make
a difference. That behavior existed when I was a kid.

~~~
FussyZeus
> Not Epic’s fault. You can thank the tech industry for figuring out how to
> put ads on everything, I don’t see how this is Epic’s fault. Don’t shoot the
> messenger when your problem is with online ads.

That's fair.

> Again, Epic didn’t make those kids shitty. When I was a kid, it was all who
> had which Pokémon cards, the fact that the goods are digital now doesn’t
> make a difference. That behavior existed when I was a kid.

I mean, Epic didn't make kids shitty, that's true. But they did explicitly
create a situation where the ability to express yourself in their social space
requires financial investment. Don't tell me that wasn't intentional.

~~~
magashna
> a situation where the ability to express yourself in their social space
> requires financial investment

Thankfully adults don't judge each other by the cars they drive, the clothes
they wear, etc. /s

~~~
FussyZeus
But _adults have money._ Children do not, usually anyway. They either work
chores or more likely, beg their parents, who may not be in a position to
spend that money, and if their kids are playing free games, I'd say the
likelihood is they aren't.

Selling crap to kids by way of their parents wallets is a time honored
tradition in our society. Epic knew what they were doing. All the games like
Fortnite do.

~~~
magashna
It's always been like this. Once it was Pokemon cards and a Gameboy, now it's
a Fortnite emote.

~~~
potta_coffee
Pokemon cards and Gameboy are more direct. Nintendo never gave away crippled
gameboys for free, with an option to unlock features incrementally.

~~~
magashna
You don't remember all the gameboy accessories? The lighted screen especially
was incredible back when a backlight wasn't built in. I was jealous of the kid
who had the light, the printer, and tons of games.

If you think the kids who didn't have gameboys at all didn't get bullied
because they weren't in the ecosystem, you'd be gravely mistaken.

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cheez
For whatever it's worth, Fortnite has taught my son that there are many ways
in which you can target self-improvement. This has spilled over to sports and
education.

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personjerry
This article seems to be fluff that hypes the game (paid marketing maybe?).
It's just a new map. The end of season events are the novelty.

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TazeTSchnitzel
It's interesting perhaps, but not particularly new. MMOs have provided
existing examples of such things. Final Fantasy XIV had an in-game apocalypse
(storyline and all) to mark the end of the troubled 1.0 version of the game,
which was remade as “2.0”, very much not the same game.

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Tepix
These virtual worlds are fun to explore. I hope there will be a game or
experience (ideally in VR) where we can experience the inside of an O'Neill
cylinder.

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valiant55
I can't even read the article with the half missing "m"s and "n"s.

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throwawayhhakdl
I dislike fortnite mainly for its aesthetic. It feels like... social media.
Highly commercial, attention demanding, fleeting, etc.

Yes I know many other games fit that model, especially things like popular
shooters, but fortnite seems to have perfected it. Miyamoto’s big moment was
figuring out people liked being someone else (Mario). Fortnite feels like a
place where you are defined by others. And it feels gross to me.

