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Fortnite Was 2018's Most Important Social Network (theverge.com)
An anonymous reader shares a report: Epic Games managed to produce a hit, sure, but the genius of it is how it's rewritten the idea of what hanging out online can be. Fortnite is a game, but it's also a global living room for millions of people, and a kind of codex for where culture has gone this year -- it's a cultural omnibus that's absorbed everything from Blocboy JB's shoot dance to John Wick. It got Ted Danson to learn how to floss. This thing is here to stay, as a new kind of social network.
Fortnite has achieved such a massive scale partially because of those network effects -- if all of your friends are hanging out there, you will be too. The game is both free to play and available on every device -- consoles, computers, even phones. That's created a kind of lingua franca, a base level of understanding among a large group of people about the experience of playing the game. And even though it's hugely popular, the experience of playing is extremely specific -- not so many people outside your peer group are going to know what you mean if you reference a "chug jug" in casual conversation. There's an in group thing going on here.
Fortnite has achieved such a massive scale partially because of those network effects -- if all of your friends are hanging out there, you will be too. The game is both free to play and available on every device -- consoles, computers, even phones. That's created a kind of lingua franca, a base level of understanding among a large group of people about the experience of playing the game. And even though it's hugely popular, the experience of playing is extremely specific -- not so many people outside your peer group are going to know what you mean if you reference a "chug jug" in casual conversation. There's an in group thing going on here.
Fortnite is the latest "fad gaming." (Last year it was PUBG.)
Fortnite has two game modes:
* PVP: The popular Battle Royale (BR) mode - a free-for-all 3rd person shooter where the play field is constantly shrinking, and
* PvE: A lesser known Save the World (STW) where players cooperatively complete different missions.
What makes Fortnite different is that:
* you hit different objects in the environment to mine resources,
* build buildings and ramps to defend,
* have a map with different zones you unlock,
* supports up to 4 player co-op.
BR is F2P (Free-to-Play) while STW is in early access -- it will be on free "soon".
If you like L4D + Minecraft + RPGs then STW is a weird hybrid.
In a years time some other game will be popular with the streamers.