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Fortnite: Battle Royale – The History of a Perfect Storm, Part Three


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(This is part three in our four-part retrospective on the first two years of Fortnite. Catch up on parts one and two.)

Through its first year, Fortnite Database-Link-e1521645463907 had moved beyond the status of a successful game and became a global pop culture phenomenon. But Epic Games Database-Link-e1521645463907 still wanted more. The developer wanted to convert this success into greater leverage for the whole company’s long-term success.

Season 6: The Epic Games Store Arrives 

 

Season Six arrived on Sept. 27, 2018, and the in-game focus was still around Loot Lake, as the cube re-emerged from the lake, ripping the island at the center apart and creating new features in the process. The cube finally exploded on Nov. 4, 2018, causing another bizarre real-time in-game moment that saw players sent to a weird, Matrix-like space before dropping back into the game world.

During this season, Epic Games also used the leverage of Fortnite’s success to turn the company’s PC launcher into a full-fledged game store in December 2018. Taking Valve Corporation’s Database-Link-e1521645463907 Steam head-on, Epic would only demand a 12% revenue share compared with Steam’s 30%.

Exclusive distribution deals began to be announced, with major titles like The Division 2 Database-Link-e1521645463907 and Borderlands 3 Database-Link-e1521645463907 along with dozens of other titles agreeing to timed exclusivity. Soon after the store was launched, Steam made its own changes to revenue splits. Valve revised the Steam revenue model, reducing its cut of sales to 25% after $10M USD and 20% after $50M. With no change for lower earnings, this led independent game developers to argue that Valve only cared about keeping AAA titles happy.

epic games store

Credit: Epic Games

Season Six also saw the launch of Epic’s Support-A-Creator program in October 2018, delivering revenue sharing to the game’s pool of influencers and celebrity streamers. Fans enter their favorite creator’s code and then all purchases over the following two weeks will deliver a 5% revenue share to that person.

Also in October, Epic Games announced a new investment round in the company, raising $1.25B in private equity funding from seven firms. Epic emphasized the new investment partners involved in the deal were all “at the forefront of technology, entertainment, professional sports, esports, and live events.”

A big commercial tie-in also took place at this time, with NFL jerseys made available as an outfit option for players to purchase representing all 32 NFL teams. Players quickly used the shirts, which had customizable numbers, to create social media memes based on controversial players, like Michael Vick with a pet dog (Vick went to prison in 2007 for his involvement in a dogfighting ring).

aaron hernandez fortnite

Pictured: Fortnite character wearing the number of Aaron Hernandez, a former Patriots player convicted of murder involving a gun.

The shirts were removed from the store four days after they launched, with Epic Games stating they rotated them out just like any other items in the store. NFL shirts did return in time for Super Bowl LIII.

In November, Bloomberg reported that the game had surpassed 200M players.

Season 7: Icebergs and Lawsuits, Dead Ahead

 

The holidays kicked off with Season Seven, as an iceberg collided with the island, changing another large section of the map in the process. The new season also brought aircraft to the game, a massive change in gameplay dynamics which occurred in the midst of the Winter Royale esports tournament.

This fearlessness of change became a problem for Epic Games when the winter event added the Infinity Blade, a wildly overpowered sword players could fight over from the very beginning of every round, to the game on Dec. 11, 2018. This coincided with the final days of the Winter Royale tournament, with a $1M prize pool on the line.

 

This clip of Counter Logic Gaming player Harrison “Psalm” Chang showcasing the power of the Infinity Blade quickly went viral, driving much of the backlash against the item.

 

Complaints from the esports community emphasized the idea that such an item was too unbalanced for competitive play, especially in the midst of a major tournament. Epic removed the sword after four days, with official statements across Twitter and Reddit thanking fans for the feedback and accepting that the company had “messed up.”

 

 

It wasn’t the first time, and wouldn’t be the last time, where Epic’s desire to add fun and eye-catching items to the game would conflict with the desire from its esports community to maintain a more balanced and well-tested approach when millions of dollars in prize money is up for grabs.

In cosmetics, wraps were a big addition to the game in Season Seven, allowing players to get customized styling on weapons and vehicles they were using in-game.

Creative Mode also landed, giving every player a private island to customize and share with the Fortnite community. The limits of Playground mode were removed, giving creative players unlimited time to develop new game concepts – puzzles, adventures, races, and more were quickly appearing and giving players a lot of fresh ideas to explore.

In a departure from Epic’s usual tournament structures, the company partnered with the Australian Open tennis to host the Summer Slam event in Melbourne, Australia, alongside the tournament’s finals weekend.

Outside the game, an argument over the use of signature dance moves as purchasable items finally took center stage, with public resentment turning into a legal battle. Milly Rock, Fresh, and Floss dance moves all featured in legal complaints as music, TV, and meme stars all claimed they should have been compensated in some way.

Credit: ABC News

The lawsuits began to hit the courts in November 2018, and by February Epic Games was facing multiple cases, but all hinged on one core concept – is a dance a copyrightable form of expression?

But while one form of cultural crossover was in the midst of legal disputes, another was about to show how music and Fortnite could come together to throw a virtual party.

Marshmello, already known to be a big Fortnite fan having won the 2018 Pro-Am with Tyler ‘Ninja’ Blevins, put on a live concert experience in the game. A stage was added to the map, and at the assigned time the game stopped letting players kill each other and just made everything about enjoying the show.

The event showed the game’s power to become a social environment, not just a game. Epic confirmed over 10M players experienced the event from inside the game – with millions more watching either via other content creator channels or on YouTube. The official Marshmello video of the concert has over 40M views.

 

 

Showing the power of Fortnite to deliver attention outside its own ecosystem, Rolling Stone reported that Marshmello’s Instagram following jumped by 1M within four days of the event, and his weekly YouTube views jumped 100M.

As Season Seven drew to a close, the World Cup qualification process began to loom large. But would it be the finish line for the golden age of Fortnite? Next time, Epic Games makes some big new moves while some unrest emerges from the ranks of the game’s biggest players.







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