Welcome to I Am Your Target Demographic.
Today we’re diving into Fortnite and explaining what this is, so this video is not intended
for people that already play but it’s useful to share with friends and family that have
no idea what Fortnite is.
In a nutshell, Fortnite is a third-person shooter videogame available on all consoles,
including mobile versions.
Fortnite was developed by Epic Games and the company People Can Fly and was released in
late 2017.
On a story level, you play as a survivor in a zombie-like apocalypse and you must gather
resources and build forts, alongside other players.
This fort-building mechanic is really what makes this game unique, with the ability to
build (and destroy) most things in the game world.
This allows for creativity, including building massive ramps and ladders to cross the entire
map of the game.
You can also straight up fight these zombies, called husks in the game, by collecting weapons and ammo.
The game is silly and vibrant in nature, so both weapons and enemies veer towards the ridiculous.
When the game first launched, the default mode was called Save the World, where you
can play in a four-person team and you must stop waves of husks, by storing up resources
and building up your fort.
This cost as much as a normal video game would, however a new mode to the game was released
and this mode was standalone and was free to download, called Battle Royale.
This mode features 100 players in a match, where you can either play solo or in groups
of up to four people, and you now face off against other real people, utilizing your
shooting and fort-building skills to be the last ones standing.
As the match progresses, you must stay inside a giant circle that is slowly shrinking, so
that you can’t just hide on the fringes and expect to win the game.
Again, the Battle Royale mode is free to download and is available on PC, Xbox One, Playstation
4, and is even available for free on iOS and soon Android devices and they connect to each
other, so you might be on your phone playing against someone on their PS4.
While it is free to download, there are optional things you can buy with real world money,
mostly including character models so that your character stands out and emotes, so that
your character can dance or showoff in the most interesting way.
A lot of these dancing emotes are based on real life dances or viral phenomenons.
More recently, we see an interesting collaboration with Marvel as the villain Thanos appeared
in Fortnite, in a new mode to fight over the infinity gauntlet.
This was a limited time mode but an interesting experiment that will likely result in more
crossovers in the future.
Now, let’s zoom out.
As of May 2018, there are about 45 million active players.
That’s massive.
It’s not just big to play, it’s big to watch.
Many people are playing and streaming their games for the world to see, the biggest of
which is a man named Ninja, Tyler Blevins.
Using the streaming service Twitch, Ninja makes about $500,000 a month by streaming
Fortnite almost exclusively.
He made the mainstream news when rapper Drake joined him for some games, reaching 600,000
watchers at one time.
Do you play Fortnite?
Do you think the genre of Battle Royale is here to stay?
Head down to the comments and give us your thoughts!
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