If you go to Google or YouTube right now and search for Fortnite, you will be amazed by the sheer number of articles and dedicated fans talking about the game. Fortnite is considered one of the most played games in the history of gaming. However, with the release of new competitive battle royale games, players shifted their interests slowly away from Fortnite, and people started to ask the question: Is Fortnite dying?
Is Fortnite Dying?
Let’s be honest: the Fortnite fanbase is mainly kids, and most of them tend to give weight to their favorite streamers’ opinions. Twitch and YouTube are some sorts of HQ for players to get some tips or follow their favorite content creators. Either way, they will eventually shift their interests toward another game just because this one is no longer relevant.
So, is Fortnite dying? The short answer is yes. The long answer is, Fornite is no longer a fun game and players started to get really annoyed after playing one game. So, what caused this?
Why is Fortnite Dying?
Benjyfishy, a content creator, thinks that servers are just not as good as before and people are just dying because of lag, which makes players even more frustrated and quit the game once and for all.
Ninja, one of the most popular Fortnite players, has quit the game indefinitely because of “how unstable the game has become”.
People who answered positively to the question “Is Fortnite dying?” tend to receive a massive amount of negative comments from the game’s enthusiasts, and that’s understandable due to the number of hours that one can easily invest in this game. However, this should not deny the fact that Fortnite is dying, and you can check the number of viewers dropping on both YouTube and Twitch. Some would say that this doesn’t reflect the real number of players.
Players, and to be more specific, those who played the game from day 1 felt a bit nostalgic and they do want to go back to the “old Fortnite” because it felt so simple, aesthetically pleasing and colorful.
People need to get the idea that not everyone who’s positively answering the question above is in a hate relationship with the game. There are a lot of Fortnite players who said the exact same thing stating the above reasons, and if you’re not one of them and you think otherwise, it’s okay. But be sure that any game has a lifecycle like any other game or product out there and Fornite is no different.
Some feel like Epic has turned its back on the game that’s why it’s in this current state even though the gameplay and the intense battles didn’t change radically since launch. This explains one thing, which is that players just got enough of the game. In addition, Twitch and YouTube played a huge role in this; Twitch streamers and YouTube Fortnite ex-focused channels influenced the way people think of the game.
When will Fortnite Die out Completely?
On Google Trends and after comparing the three giants (Fornite, Apex Legends and Call Of Duty), we notice that Fortnite is always above the previously mentioned games. However, after gaining a lot of attraction at launch, Fortnite started a steady decline.
We can’t really predict when will Fortnite die out completely yet, but rest assured that it will show noticeable signs before it does.
What Can Epic Games Do About It?
The negative feedback came in after Epic Games launched the second chapter of Fortnite. Partially thanks to the addition of bots.
Here’s what Epic Games announced before the release of Chapter 2:
“In the next Season, we are adding Bots to Fortnite. They will behave similarly to normal players and will help provide a better path for players to grow in skill. Bots will work in conjunction with the new matchmaking system, and as your skill improves, you’ll face fewer Bots. Bots will not be present in Competitive playlists. This is another system that we will continue to update and iterate.”
– Epic Games
Adding bots to a multiplayer game is a new tactic that aims to ease things on new players and make them stick and learn the game, lowering the chance of them quitting it once and for all. This is usually seen in mobile games as mobile players’ tolerance is not that big compared to PC or console players and tend to quit and uninstall the game faster if it doesn’t feel rewarding or “easy” at first.
In Fortnite though, bots have a lot of issues. Players reported that bots are not using their weapons against players. Here’s a video showing the strange behavior of a bot.
Adding to the above notes, update frequency contributed negatively to first impressions as they dropped after the launch of the second chapter thinking that the game has become better and more stable.
To keep players engaged, they need to explore new things in the game and this can only be achieved by new updates. Adding more loot, locations and skins proved to be a great method to keep and increase the fanbase, but going down the threshold, will definitely impact the game negatively.
So, there you go. Is Fortnite Dying? Well yes, and will continue the steady decline as new games keep releasing and the remaining Fortnite streamers start realizing that the game that brings them the views and subs is no longer Fortnite. This will lead a good chunk of gamers to switch to the relevant new game, and in consequence, the new game will indirectly steal the audience. And that’s just how the market works.
We all know that playing a game and sticking to it for years will eventually build a strong relationship, making it harder to accept the fact that it will start dying anytime soon. A new game will take its place and become the number one, yet the game in which you’ve invested hours and days is becoming unpopular. Everyone is just hating on it because a streamer or a YouTuber said that it’s not relevant anymore.
It’s easy for companies to release a game that appeals to kids, making it a good product for streamers and YouTubers to utilize to bring more eyeballs to their channels, but it’s also easy to lose all of that in a short amount of time. This doesn’t happen usually with mature audience-focused games, as these players tend to make decisions based on their own opinions. But, there’s a downside to this, which is that this community is not as profitable as the young audience. That’s why we see a lot of games destined for a younger audience these days, so companies like Epic Games can increase their profit.
That was it. If you want to learn more about battle royale games and what the future holds for this genre, you can check this article right here.