The Rise (and Fall) of Fortnite

So around a couple of months ago, I'd like to say around November perhaps, but don't quote me on that, Fortnite blew up. It had been around for many years but had never been released, and it was quite an underhyped game, in fact barely any people had heard of it until they released the Battle Royale mode. They essentially leeched off of the ideas which were established in many more games besides Fortnite. Such as PUBG. The game's cartoonish graphics and of course the game being free, expanded the platforms it was available on and the audience it was available to. Fast forward to around 9 months later, and the game has started to decrease in popularity. The first few seasons had been very fun and always engaging, now that everyone has played there's really nothing new about the main playstyle of the game, so eventually it will feel washed out and get old.

But, they won't go down so easily, as you see, they'll try to keep what there is of a story engaging so long as to keep players engaged. But eventually they WILL run out of ideas, or there'll be a new game that blows Fortnite out of the water. As someone who plays Fortnite from time to time, I can fairly state that this game does get really boring until a new Limited Time Mode or a new season is released. So eventually the game will just flat out lose all its popularity. While people got an engaging experience all of Season 1, during Season 4, fewer people were playing or talking about the game, until of course in two days, when Season 5 rolls around. When this major update is released the game will experience another spike in popularity for the first month or so, and then the numbers will slowly drop, until the next season is released, and the numbers spike again. And this will loop until people just flat out get bored. To be completely honest, this strategy is not all that bad. The game will see the biggest spike in a while once they make the singleplayer PVE free. After this, the game will most likely plummet. Each new season will be high in players, and little to no people will be playing by the end. But, let's not get ahead of ourselves, because there are more factors that could simply end the game now, instead of in a year or two.

One of these factors is the PUBG lawsuit. Of course, this lawsuit had been dropped, and by numerous factors, but that doesn't mean it could sprout again. Season 5 might completely change Fortnite giving PUBG more leverage to sue. And since the lawsuit will take place in Korea, Fortnite will probably plummet and stay low, especially for those players in the Korea region, as well as most of PUBG's players will quit Fortnite altogether.

If Fortnite keeps up its reign, the outrageous in-app purchases could also ruin this game. At this point, it's $10 for what's known as an 'Epic Skin' which is insane. And when the staff runs out of creative ideas, the game can no longer get a stable in-app purchase income.

So, in conclusion, while Epic Games, has been extremely clever in their choices for keeping Fortnite alive for a long time, at some point they will lose it. It'll go down in the 'Dumb Trends Hall of Fame" along with Fidget Spinners. Fortnite is an OK game, but it will soon become too overrated, and will simply die out, to be replaced by the next viral trend (Or COD Battle Royale ;D )

Thumbnail Source: https://www.polygon.com/2018/6/27/17509372/pubg-epic-games-fortnite-lawsuit-ends!