Fortnite has ruined the modern gaming landscape
Fortnite has ruined the modern gaming landscape.
I know, bold statement to start an article, right? Obviously, I’m throwing that out there to grab your attention, but I stand by the sentiment. Of course, the juggernaut from Epic Games has done a lot to shift games forward, but its rise in popularity has caused a major rift in video games as countless developers and publishers try to attempt the impossible and capture the same kind of lightning in a bottle.
Fortnite debuted in 2017 and not long after its initial launch, Epic Games introduced a battle royale mode into what was, until that point, a PvE game. We all know the story from that point on. The game took off, dominating play time and game streaming hours; it made household names of streamers and became your kids’ favourite pastime. We all mocked the floss dance, we joined in with large-scale real-time events, and watched as collaborations and celebrity endorsements rolled in.
It made every single developer and publisher in the industry stand up and take notice. In the couple of years after Fortnite hit it big, other battle royales began to appear on the market. Some had been around for a while and were starkly overshadowed despite seeing success, others jumped on the bandwagon in the hopes that either Fortnite would sputter out, or more likely, that the audience would split their time. With hindsight, we know neither happened, but it’s the second point that’s the crux of this article.
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Despite what anyone thinks of Fortnite, it hasn’t slowed down. Sure, some battle royale seasons didn't land as Epic Games had hoped, but the fanbase is always there to return come the following season. Now, there are so many game modes in the ecosystem that it’s hard to see why some players would go anywhere else in their free time.
The problem is, the wider industry thought they could also get a slice of that same pie. Let’s take a look at the innovations that Fortnite has applied - not invented necessarily, but innovated - to get to where it is. There’s evolving and ever-updating content, real-time events, celebrity partnerships, battle passes, and the catch-all term ‘live-service’. Nowadays, it’s become a hub for entertainment, but we’ll come back to this.
Other companies spied the game’s ever-increasing revenue, then began to adapt their own products around these new tent poles in the industry established by Fortnite with varying degrees of success. We see several games fail for every live-service product that thrives.
It’s easy to see why. The year after its surge in popularity, Fortnite earned over $5.4 billion and while that dipped in 2019 to £3.7 billion, it picked back up for the Covid-19 years ($5.1 billion for 2020) and hasn’t really slowed all that much since. That’s big business. It’s no wonder then that Activision cottoned on and launched Call of Duty: Warzone which, as reported in 2024 by Dot Esports, makes over £5 million dollars per day.
But that doesn’t happen to every project, and while a company like Activision has the financials to hold up games like this during those lower, less successful seasons, other developers are left scrambling in the dust as players grow bored or choose not to migrate. Either that, or they watch as the trend passes them by, releasing a product that no one really wants anymore.
I hate to bring up Concord as it’s been through the wringer so much since its cancellation by Sony, but it’s a prime example of this issue. Hero shooters were all the rage, then, they naturally died down, with players sticking to the titles they love. Concord needed to be extra special to pull players away from games they’ve sunk money into, as well as hundreds of hours. Marvel Rivals has bested this problem by making ties with Marvel Comics, a known entity. But why would players, who are so deep into a game, want to walk away for something new when they can remain comfortable with what’s old and reliable?
However, many heads of industry saw only dollar signs, ignoring the repercussions of chasing the trend. Bringing this back to Fortnite, the success spawned waves of developers taking chances that weren’t needed. I’m not saying anything new here, but we don’t need a battle pass in every single game, nor does everything have to fit into the live-service model.
But, of course, executives are always looking for the line to go up. It’s not good enough nowadays to have a solid RPG experience thrive as a single player adventure, or for players to simply invest in the game once and then enjoy it forever. We keep having to spend constantly and consistently to keep publishers and studios open. This has a huge impact on players, and it’s easy to see why they shun some new releases. There’s only so much time and money in the world, after all. I’m not sure where these publishers think we’re going to get another 9.99 from for a fifth battle pass.
It’s going to be tough to convince, at this stage, any hardcore Fortnite player to walk away towards something new. Why would they? You’ve got a competitive battle royale that updates constantly, a Minecraft-style adventure in LEGO Fortnite, a racing game (that could be cancelled soon, to be fair), and a music rhythm game. That’s not counting the rumoured extraction mode, the Counter Strike attack and defend mode Ballistic that’s just launched as well as the newly announced LEGO Brick Life sim.
Fortnite carved out a niche, and while what they’re doing now can’t be considered a niche, they landed a hit and constantly reinvested that money into the game. This saw exponential growth and other creators in the industry hoped to swoop in and capitalise on that by using the same model, wrongly thinking that the magic would also rub off on them.
It’s clear that Fortnite has fundamentally changed what gaming is. I’m an old fart, so I still remember the days of cartridges and no internet, but even in the last five years, the business model and the entertainment on offer in that single release has warped the industry. I look at the gaming habits of my kids and how they’ve changed over the years. Five years ago, we’d have played Mario Party, Minecraft, a little Mario Kart … Now, they are so deeply invested in Fortnite, not just because they’re good at it and have fun, but because they’ve literally invested money into it through skins, music tracks, and battle passes.
I don’t think the success of Fortnite is inherently a bad thing, but it has spawned bad practices in an industry crowded with so many opportunities. It’s time to stop trying to catch lightning in a bottle twice, stop trying to tempt others away with an imitative product. It’s not like there aren’t original creatives in the industry waiting for their chance to invent a new game mode or mechanic. A lot of the money being pumped into these doomed projects could be invested in nurturing studios, letting creativity rein, and watching as something expansive grows naturally. Forcing the issue has got us nowhere and is ruining the landscape of gaming.
Topics: Epic Games, Fortnite, Opinion