Fortnite, ever heard of it? Of course you have, if you don’t have any interest in video games, even if you don’t and are just some innocent bystander, chances are you’ve been exposed to the freight train that is Fortnite. Kids love it, is probably something you have heard, but it is way more than just a kid’s game. So where did it start? Many modern Fortnite fans probably don’t know what Epic Games did before they released Fortnite, if they figured out they would probably be quite surprised. Epic Games wasn’t always a family friendly video game studio, they really put themselves on the map for developing some of the most violent and gory video games ever made, the Gears of War series. So how did they go from being a developer of a game like Gears of War, to the kid friendly battle royale shooter Fortnite? Well like most business decisions, it started with money.
Gears of War was Getting to Expensive
Epic Games made its first huge splash in video game history when they released Gears of War in 2006. Published by Microsoft and only available on the Xbox 360, Gears of War was a futuristic third person shooter with a very compelling campaign, as well as a multiplayer formula that was one of a kind and very successful. One of the staples of Gears of War, and the games to come, was the over the top violence. I mean my goodness, you could have a chainsaw attached to your assault rifle, that’s like every kids dream. The violence was so intense, it was outright comical. If you were hit in the head with a sniper round, your head would literally explode like a watermelon, with an incredibly loud splashing sound. This theme didn’t stop with the sequel Gears of War 2, and the spinoff in Gears of War: Judgement. The series never let up and it became a beloved fan favorite for Xbox players.
While the series was very successful for the first two releases, the excitement tapered off, following the release of Gears of War: Judgment. Judgment was a good game, but it wasn’t what Gears fans were looking for. With the price of developing these games rising after each entry in the series, Gears of War 3 was looking to exceed $100 million in development costs. Epic was worried that if they went through with developing Gears 3, the margin of error would be so small for them to be able to make any profit. This caused epic to rethink their direction of the company, and make some big changes.
Epic Games Makes a Deal with Tencent
Tencent is mostly known through the Eastern part of the world, but even so, they are the largest video gaming company in the world. They primarily focus on mobile games which wouldn’t you know it, is the largest platform for video games. Epic sold 48% of its shares to Tencent in order to get funding on what would be the next phase for Epic Games’ life.
Epic came up with a plan of action for how they would reshape their business model. They would make their Unreal Engine free to anyone who wanted to use it, under the stipulation that they would get a royalty cut of anything made using their engine. Seeing as how the Unreal Engine is one of the most used engines in all of video game development, the royalty cuts were not considered chump change by any means.
The second big change was getting rid of the license for Gears of War. Because Microsoft was already publishing the game, and have quite a bit of money to throw around, they happily took the license off the hands of Epic Games. They have since then released 3 mainline Gears games with their first party studio, The Coalition. Selling Gears of War allowed for Epic to focus on other, smaller games. There were three, in particular, Paragon, Unreal Tournament and Epic 4.0, which ended up being Fortnite. What started off as an indie side project for Epic Games, became one of the biggest cultural phenomena’s in the history of pop culture., that changed esports and gaming to completely.
The Early Days of Fortnite
As I said before, Fortnite started off as an indie title, Epic didn’t really know what they were going to make of Fortnite. Development started in 2013, which was a time where the “games of service” model was picking up a lot of traction. With the help of Tencent, Epic Games was able to adapt what they were developing, and really cater to what was popular in video games at the time. The early days of development were centered on base building and horde fighting, two very popular themes for that area of gaming. The tone was also set to be much darker, but was changed to a more cartoonish feel, assumedly to make a more accessible setting for a variety of different players. This was the ground work for what we know nowadays as Save the World.
Fortnite: Save the World was released in July of 2017, it was initially available for paid early access, only later would it become a free to play game. This model was selected so that Epic could get extra funding in order to more finely tune Save the World mode. They informed potential customers that the game would eventually be free to play, but if you were to spend money on the early access version, there would be extra in game benefits that you would receive. The game was met with lukewarm reviews and early on it was only a moderate success. But like their partners in Tencent Games, Epic was able to adapt, and fast, to what was expected from modern free to play titles.
Around the time Save the World was released, PlayerUnkown’s Battlegrounds was the game that was taking over all of video gaming and esports alike. PUBG was a game that drew off of the popularity of what H1Z1 had been. These both being of course, battle royale games. 100 players enter, and only one will leave victorious. It was a trend that was exploding in video game culture, and video game streaming, a form of entertainment that grew immensely, in large part due to the rise of battle royale games. Battle royales and video game streaming were exploding together. This is something that Epic Games couldn’t ignore. In only a few months, Epic added a free battle royale mode to go alongside Save the World, in hopes to get in on the battle royale trend that was only growing at this point. I doubt even Epic new what gold mine they had struck at the time.
Fortnite Battle Royale Takes Over Pop Culture
In pop culture and entertainment, there are trends, or fads you could call them. People always clamor for what the new thing is, I feel that this speaks the loudest when talking about trends in video games. The battle royale scene was just the next big thing in games. But what made Fortnite different was a culmination of so many things at the perfect time.
Even at the time of its release, Fortnite was a more polished experience than PUBG and its other competitors. In a multiplayer shooter, polish is key to a fun experience. Of course it wasn’t perfect, but even on day one you could notice the quality difference between the two. Fortnite worked, and it worked well. Shortly after its release the game was able to run at 60fps on console and pc, one of the most important keys for a successful shooter.
Building is what also helped Fortnite pull away from its competitors. The building mechanic was taken straight out of Save the World and put into the battle royale mode. At first, this was thought of as just an interesting feature that was thrown in because it was already in the PvE portion of the game. But building is what turned Fortnite into the behemoth that it has become, it is what sets it apart from any other battle royal game, no matter how good or polished they may be. Building has become just as important as shooting during firefights, if you can’t build, you probably won’t succeed. It allows for each game to be different, it’s the reverse effect of destructible environments, which is another feature that is highly praised in other games. Building adds to the depth of what makes a Fortnite player or match unique, and if you’re going to play Fortnite, be prepared to learn the art of building.
Fortnite of course tailored to kids even more so than adults. Think about a parent choosing between letting their child play Fortnite or PUBG, the answer is obvious to your average parent. Fortnite not only has an incredibly cartoonish aesthetic, but even the parts that are supposed to be violent, like shooting an enemy, are made into cute and kid friendly moments. Parents could get behind this game, and with it being free to play, it did no damage to their wallets. Of course that is true unless you indulge on micro transactions, or V-Bucks as they are known in game. V-Bucks are purchased with real money so that in game you can buy various character skins, dances and pickaxes to harvest materials with. With Fortnite being free to play, this is the perfect was to monetize your game, especially when you are constantly rolling out unique and adorable skins for your players to use.
With the game being fun for all ages, and the rise of battle royale shooters, Fortnite was a huge go to game for the most popular streamers to play. It got to the point to where if you weren’t playing Fortnite, chances are your viewer count was taking a hit. This was only exacerbated by celebrities like Drake, Brendon Urie and Chance the Rapper who would play Fortnite with other popular streamers. As viewership rose for the streamers playing Fortnite, player count would rise at the same time. The active player count for Fortnite rose to over 70 million at its peak.
Fortnite 3 years later
Even in Winter of 2019, Fortnite is still near the top of the list each month for most downloaded video game software. Epic Games has done better than almost any developer at constantly adding content, and updating the game to fix current issues. The game roles out seasonal content in the form of their battle pass. The battle pass is a feature that many games try and duplicate, but it was perfected by Fortnite. The battle pass is a series of tiers, each tier having a new item to gain whether that is a skin or emote, and each tier is earned by completing in game objectives. This is another way that Fortnite has been able to keep the game feeling fresh, along with new guns, map updates and in game events that are added on a regular basis. As of the time this was published, Fortnite is now in its 11th season. The launch of the 11th season was one of the biggest ones yet for the game. It featured a temporary shutdown of all the servers, and Epic did not let any of the fans know what was happening. The game essentially, vanished, only to be brought back 2 days later with an entirely new map and new features. This launched Fortnite right back on to every main stream media platform, and helped it dominate the streaming charts.
For a game to be dominating the charts like it does, even three years later, is truly amazing to see. I for one, have not played Fortnite nearly as much as I did a year ago, but I still marvel at its ability to stay relevant. Epic really capitalized on what was hot at the time, but it can’t all by contributed to that alone. It’s what Epic did to make Fortnite fun for everyone, and how they have been able to stay on top of things better than any other developer does. Sure they make mistakes, like taking features away that people love like the grapple gun, and adding things people loath like the mechs. But Epic Games has the ability to show how charismatic they are about video games through what they put in Fortnite, and that shows in all the unique and crazy features that makes Fortnite so different from all the rest.
