OPinion

Why Fortnite Is Bad For The Gaming Economy

By Reporter Blake Call

I’m sure you've heard of the popular game Fortnite and its growing popularity in recent years and the rise of free to play games trying to be the next Fortnite, but have you considered the negative effects the popular game has caused in the few years it's been available publicly?

The first of these negative effects it the amount of copycats trying to be the next Fortnite. The issues with these games are they are usually pay to win, cheap to make, lack quality and copy gameplay components caused Fortnite's rise to fame, such as building and the cartoonish art style. The amount of these copycats flooding the market may just cause the next video game crash, and will make it almost impossible to find quality games through the amount of cheap games even with the help of the internet and news sources.

Another side effect of Fortnite's existence is the amount of media coverage and content made by Youtubers and Twitch streamers. The amount of content flooding in from these sources has made it almost impossible to look up gaming news or watch Youtube without seeing anything Fortnite related. This amount of content is an endless cycle of copycats copying the copycats and so forth. The countless amount of these copycats and unoriginal videos are going to make it almost impossible to find quality videos about anything other than Fortnite and other battle royal games.

The cartoonish art style had also led to a rise in children's games once again flooding the market, with copycat games claiming to be the next Fortnite. Not to mention the amount of “guides” for the game preying on children who want to be the next Ninja or pro player. This manipulation of children has been going on since the game became popular and is very similar to the way children were manipulated when the popular game Minecraft was popular with countless books, guides ,and magazines packing your local Walmart bookshelves taking up space where much better books should be.

Although Fornite is a mediocre game to play, the fans seem to believe it's the best thing to happen to gaming since the SNES creating an almost impossible to avoid toxic fanbase, rivaling League Of Legends with its toxicity. This amount of toxicity is pouring into other games due to the fact that children are now playing other games after picking up Fortnite and deciding to try other games. Now servers on games like BF5, BF4 ,and any of the Call Of Duty games. The fact that the parents of these children are buying them these games is another problem and discussion of its own.

Although the game has many flaws and side effects the gaming community has learned to adapt to these flaws like any good market has in the last few years ,the side effects of Fortnite and lasting effects are still very obvious and still a bit hard to avoid.