The phenomenon of Fortnite has baffled many people. Its popularity is at its highest peak and many gamers are joining in the fun.
But what makes is too addictive?
Actually, Fortnite does not have any original gameplay premise, it is basically a battle royal game. 100 players simply reconvene on an island and fight each other to the death until one remains the winner.
So what makes this game so different than others?
Gameplay
First of all, Fortnite did not start its life as a battle royal game. It was originally released in 2017 as a player vs environment experience. However, Epic saw the rise of the battle royal genre which was pretty eminent with one specific game – PUBG.
Epic decided to change this and added the battle royal twist to the formula.
Players that drop on an island have the option of fighting among themselves or in teams of four. They also only have a pickaxe and the clothes on their backs when they drop. Requiring them to be intuitive to make their own weapons and defenses.
But what keeps the game dynamic is a literal coming storm which threatens to destroy the island as time passes. Players need to stay in the eye of the storm so they don’t fall off the island and die.
E-Sports
Fortnite was given the 2017 Game Award and in the same year managed to gain 30 million players in total and 3.1 concurrent players, thanks to its release on Xbox One.
This also brought Fortnite to the world’s biggest eGames stage when the Fortnite world cup was organized. What makes this event important is the prize pool. The event was backed by private investors like KKR and Tencent, offering a total of $30 million in prize money.
The winner of the event would take home a prize of $3 million. The winner of a Tennis Grand Slam tournament takes home some $3.8 million in prize money, for comparison. Meaning that the popularity of Fortnite has reached such heights that it is able to compete with some of the most lucrative and oldest sports in the world.
Streaming
Streaming added another sphere to the rising popularity of Fortnite. Gamers on Twitch started playing this game more and more and a lot of viewers joined in to watch.
Figures show that certain streams even have a consistent rate of 100,000 concurrent viewers.
Blevin, one of the most notable gamers on Twitch, even got to a figure of 130,000 viewers at one point.
Streaming is a very popular premise as many players that are unable to play the video game can see it. Some people even don’t like playing games so much but like watching other people play. It basically what allowed the game to rise even further.
To Summarize
So as you can see, these are the specific things that brought great success to Fortnite. It does not seem like much and it is not a specific formula that all games should follow, but it certainly worked for Fortnite. Sometimes it takes being at a specific place at a certain time in order to pull off the success that the game has been having.
All in all, there is no sign of stopping now as new updates and patches are being released. Fortnite is here to stay.