The wild popularity of the Fortnite cartoon shooter from Epic Games has led to interesting side effects. The fact is that this game is distributed
only in digital form , that is, via the Internet. The Battle Royale (PvP) version is completely free. Therefore, drives with it are very rare. Last year, Gearbox Software, together with Epic Games, published a
limited series of such discs , which immediately became a desired goal among collectors.
Collectors are generally strange people. It seems that they are ready to pay absolutely for everything that exists in limited quantities.
The prices for disks of that circulation reach
450 dollars for one disk ! In the photo on the left, the price of $ 60 during last year’s sale — even before Fortnite gained insane popularity and rewrote game industry records. Those discs have become rarities.
What are the reasons for the popularity of this game? I dare to suggest that the main reason is children. Looks like this is one of the first quality shooters made specifically for a child’s audience.
The age rating of the game is 12+, while most normal shooters have a rating of 16+ or 18+. And this should not be misleading. Modern children at the age of 11-12 already consider themselves adults and play games of 16+. In this case, can you imagine the age group of Fortnite games with a rating of 12+? It turns out that these are elementary school students, that is, from the first to the third grade, and even preschoolers, why not?
Screenshot from Fortnite gameIn this regard, I recall the
story of an American hacker, David Pokory, who skillfully played
Blake Stone: Aliens of Gold at the age of three, still not being able to really speak, read or write. There is an old family video where he played with a three-year-old. And there it is clear that at this age, the crumb already masterfully controls the game. In fact, he
started playing shooters from the age of two . Subsequently, the passion for games helped the guy to reverse the Xbox 360, break the Microsoft defense from JTAG-stitched consoles, crack Halo 3 and Call of Duty.
If anyone does not know, then Blake Stone: Aliens of Gold is a game on the Wolfenstein 3D engine from id Software, that is, on a classic first-person shooter that almost all people of our generation played. Differences from the original in that the graphics were replaced with a more animated, contrasting, sci-fi style, a new weapon appeared, etc. Well, it doesn’t matter, this is actually the same classic Wolfenstein that revolutionized the PC gaming industry.
So, looking at Fortnite for some reason it seems that this game should be very popular among kids from kindergarten and elementary school. If you know about such cases - be sure to write in the comments to confirm the theory :)
It's funny that Fortnite was released by the same company Epic Games, for breaking into which Pokor was imprisoned for 18 months (it was already released last year). Sorry for the spoiler, if you have not read the wonderful translation of the
"Xbox Undeground" from a colleague
m1rko .
Fortnite has already been
recognized as the most profitable free game in history for a single month, and specifically for the past May, 2018.
In May 2018, on Fortnite: Battle Royale consoles overtook even the eternal bestseller FIFA in terms of profit. On the PC platform, she moved into fifth place, overtaking DOTA 2, World of Warcraft, World of Tanks, CS: GO and other monsters.
For
one month, the game earned a crazy
318.3 million dollars . This is an absolute record in the history of computer games.
What do Fortnite players pay for, whom David Pokora called “spoiled children with parental credit cards”? A hacker with friends sold them Call of Duty infections, which acted in a regular game. Epic Games operates more traditionally and offers in-game purchases in Fortnite, which usually do not give an advantage over other players: they
write that these are clothes, dance moves, and so on. The
FAQ promises not to sell anything that gives an advantage in the game.
According to analysts of SuperData Research, the multiplatform game Fortnite can already be put on a par with other recent phenomena such as Pokémon Go and Clash of Clans.
For some reason, it seems that the main driving force behind the success of all these games is children. Well, I have not seen crowds of adults who are cut into Clash of Clans (this is a multiplayer game, somewhat similar to the old “Heroes”). Is that Pokémon Go captured part of the ubergic adult audience, who are also children in the shower.
Most likely, the main success of Fortnite is still ahead. The console version was released eight months ago, and the
release for iOS took place only three months ago, on March 15, and in the first 30 days immediately earned
$ 25 million . The version for Android
will be released this summer - that's when the kids will sit down in full. Both boys and girls. Well, at least the children will start playing normal human games.