Column: Baker’s Blab on Fortnite

Let’s talk about Fortnite. Not about building tactics or the John Wick skin or the changes made to the game on the latest update, but about Fortnite’s impact on today’s society.

I first found out about Fortnite when my brother began to play it. I’d watch him play and, truthfully, thought it was a stupid game. The cartoon graphics, dancing characters and bright colors just don’t fit a battle royale game.

However, after trying it for the first few matches and playing with friends, I found out why my brother would spend hours playing.

Whether you love or hate it, it’s impossible to avoid this game. Game clips are all over social media, and at least one of your Snapchat friends probably has a Victory Royale screenshot on their story right now.

You’ve probably seen parts of Fortnite in real life, too. Students everywhere, particularly those in high school and college, are obsessed with Fortnite. They throw parties and gather with their consoles and TVs just to play Fortnite for hours on end.

If they’re not playing, there’s a good chance they’re watching someone else play. Tyler ‘Ninja’ Blevins, who is currently the most popular Fortnite streamer, has more than 140,000 followers and makes around $560,000 a month according to Coed Media Group.

In all, Fortnite has found its way into almost every aspect of our culture.

But why Fortnite? Battle Royale games have been around for several years, and Fortnite was announced and developed in 2014-2015. Why not another video game?

Part of its appeal may be the ability to play completely for free, and all you need is an internet connection. Anyone can play, anytime, anyplace.

None of the other popular Battle Royale video games are free, and none of them run quite as well as Fortnite does. Epic Games, the producers of Fortnite, put out weekly updates and maintain the game incredibly well.

But aside from accessibility and quality, why has Fortnite become a large part of our society?

I think that the appeal isn’t in the quality of the game at all. It’s in the challenge, the reward and the community.

The game isn’t easy to win, especially not at first. You spend more of your time loading a new game than playing. But you can’t stop playing because each time you get closer and closer to a win.

Actually, winning is a borderline euphoric experience for many; you entered a match of 100 people and came out on top after countless defeats.

But even the challenge and reward aren’t enough to make a game such a success; there are plenty of intensely challenging games with a high reward system that aren’t nearly as popular.

Fortnite has grown to such a huge success because players each have their unique experiences and their stories to tell each other, as well as a sense of friendly competition that binds them together.

This video game has become like a sports game or other real-life competition that players want to tell each other about. If you listen to any conversation about Fortnite, you’ll probably hear people talking about the win they got last night or the crazy thing that happened in the middle of a match.

On top of that, players enjoy the game for the competition. Some players like to say that Fortnite has brought back the friendly competition and community that older games used to have.

So, really, Fortnite has become such a large part of society today because it’s a way for people to make friends and spend time together having fun. The quality of the game doesn’t matter so much as the community does, and so long as people are playing together and enjoying the game, Fortnite will probably stick around.