How Fortnite Conquered Gaming and Mainstream Cultures Like Few Before It

With an assist from some celebrity players, the online third-person shooter became part of the monoculture in 2018. How does it stack up compared to previous games that reached cultural ubiquity?

[SegaGamer]

There is always a game the casual market jump on. We have had Call of Duty, Roblox, Pokemon Go, now it's Fortnite's turn. People are sheep, they follow, and if you're the company lucky enough to part of the latest fad, then you're going to be get very rich from it. It doesn't even have to be good, because none of these games I mentioned are any good in my opinion.

[gangsta_red]

Fortnite, casual? Why because it's popular?

Does this sheep mentality apply to all successful games or just the ones you personally have no interest in?

[bluefox755]

It's a fair statement though. Despite it's massive popularity, Fortnite articles on places like N4G or other mainstream games journalism get no hits, they all but ignore Fortnite, because it doesn't draw clicks, because fortnite players aren't the type of people like we are who keep up to date on all of the latest gaming news. The reason for this is that most fortnite players aren't really core gamers. They play Fortnite and maybe CoD or Madden. I have tons of friends like this, and even though we're all gamers, we don't really have anything in common. I don't think "casual" has to be a pejorative.

[Wallstreet37]

Word. Maybe casual in the sense anyone can get into it but thts just broad appeal. Fortnite is highly competitive and the casuals get stomped on lol.
I have never seen the level of addiction this game has. All my sons friends play this game at least 5 hours a day lol and I tell him "get off, thts not going to be you!!!!" I also play it alot.

[gangsta_red]

@bluefox
I honestly don't believe your reasons can justify calling Fortnite players or people who play Fortnite casuals.

@Wallstreet
Agreed, i have seen some high level Fortnite play and I have also watched my son play with his friends and when they start engaging in battles and start building to get that height advantage it's anything but casual play when that starts happening.

"...at least 5 hours a day lol and I tell him "get off, thts not going to be you!!!!" I also play it alot."

Yooooo!! It's a serious epidemic, I have to literally kick my son off it and force him outside. I remember one time I told him, "get off that game and go outside and hang with your friends." He looked at me and said, "what for? all my friends are inside playing Fortnite."

All I could do was go "oh...." and walk away.

He hit me with the stone cold stunner and there was nothing I could do about.

[1nsomniac]

I have absolutely no idea how Fortnite got to where it is other than clever marketing through celebrity endorsements. I know they paid for fake press at the beginning but wow did this take off. It’s not even that good as a game. There is much better out there. I mean it’s closest rival, PUBG, is vastly superior for starters.

Don’t get me wrong though. It’s the best F2P game there’s ever been so far.

[NarutoFox]

PUBG has had technical problems since it first release. Pubg only has good graphics but it's still a technical mess imo

[-volt-]

If this game was $59.99 it would have failed