LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (KTHV) - If you play video games, or you have kids who do, you know about Fortnite. To those who don't know, it’s not a two-week summer camp named for the very British way of saying 14 days. Fortnite is the biggest fad in video games right now, being played by boys, girls, elementary schoolers up to young adults (and even some not so young). That has some parents are a little concerned about letting kids play it.
To get a feel for it, we gathered a 9-year-old son of a reporter, a 14-year-old brother of a THV11 producer, plus three other station employees in their 20’s and 30’s. It wasn’t hard to drum up a Fortnite party, even in the middle of the workday.
So with a soon-to-be 4th grader on hand, one can ask for an explanation of the game to hopefully get a simple, childlike answer.
“It’s last person standing,” said Robby Hoyt, a self-proclaimed gaming expert, at least as far as he tells his father (your humble reporter). “You have to go into a storm and basically have a fun time with your friends.”
So much for the simple explanation. Robby needs to work on fleshing out details.
Other input in the room (and a Google search) reveals that Fortnite is a game where you are the super-hero shooter. You land on an island with dozens of other online players and try to be the last one alive, earning a “Victory Royale.” To keep you from hiding until the end, there's a radioactive storm that closes a tighter and tighter eye over the island.
Epic Games is the creator of the world and has watched the game take off with an estimated 125 million players battling it out.
And our experts at the party have an easy explanation for why.
“It's free,” said Michael Buckner, the oldest of our gamers and THV11’s Social Media Manager. “That and battle royale games are the in thing right now. It’s also the first battle royale game on consoles. That’s where most gamers are, on PlayStation and Xbox.”
Other elements include building forts, which readily appeals to the Minecraft generation. Players can team up in duos or squads, and that creates an appeal to teens and young adults. There's even the chance to dance, with players able to drop “dance bombs” and send their avatars into The Floss, or other wiggles and shakes. It’s bright, colorful and cartoonish, but as the players land, those characters shoot each other with assault weapons. The childish cartoon look contains some very grown-up themes.
“We should always be cautious about the potential effects that they have,” said Howard Turney, PhD.
He is a professor at UA-Little Rock and practicing family psychologist.
“Video games occupy a lot of time for children and I'm not sure that we know exactly what that does to children.”
Reinforcing his point that parents need to monitor young people on these games, especially when they play alongside adults, is the comments my son and our teenage guest make about the game.
“Kill everyone. Last person standing. Getting a victory royale,” Robby said.
“It's really addicting,” Bert Lewis, our 14-year-old player. “You always come back to it. When you get mad at it you just come right back to it. It's that addicting, but it's so much fun to play with a bunch of your friends.”
Hearing those sentences from such young mouths is scary to this parent, but then it’s not all death and desolation.
The whole room explodes in excitement when Buckner scores a Victory Royale. That spirit reflects some redeeming qualities that even Dr. Turney recognizes.
“They can help a child improve hand-eye coordination,” he said. “The child might not be good at particular subjects in school but they might be successful in gaming and this might potentially improve their self-confidence.”
He advises limiting the number of hours children play. Bert says his parents have a timer set on his console, cutting him off after four hours of gaming.
If parents still have concerns about the game, fear not, older, experienced gamers say you probably won’t have to wait long for the Fortnite fad to pass.
“I really see it going the way of Guitar Hero,” said Zach Keast, a technical director for THV11 and proud “noob” or newbie when it comes to Fortnite. “That game was popular for three years, but once they started making copies, it crashed.”
So the literal and figurative Fortnite storm may be coming to an end.
While the game may be free, Epic Games makes lots of money by selling "battle packs” or accessories to enhance play. The packs have crazy weapons and costumes and dance moves. There are also other versions of the game that cost money to play.
Bert estimated he spent about $80 in the past eight months on Fortnite, making it similar to a subscription to streaming music or videos.