Manufactured Discontent and Fortnite
So back at the beginning of February 20, 19, DJ marshmallow performed, a live concert, inside, Epic Games online. Gaming sensation. Fortnight, and I. Have since then being informed via numerous breathy. Think pieces, that fortnight is no longer, merely a game but, is now a content. Delivery. Platform. Experience. And so. Logically. The only, sensible thing for me to do is to get in on this and pivot, entirely. To. Fortnight. Welcome. To, the brand-new, folding, ideas all fortnight digital studio that is not only a, digital, studio because I'm producing digital content, but it is also, literally. A digital, studio it is, double. Digital and. This. This arm-waving emote, is the only meaningful animation, I've got and there's nothing available that really looks like talking. So I, I, guess, it's what I'm going with for now so when you see me doing this it, means, I'm talking, to. You. It. Took me like 20 hours to unlock this fortnight developed, by Epic Games is, an online, for player cooperative, base-building tower-defense shooter, game released, as early access, with in-game purchases in, july 2017. The game has been utterly, eclipsed, by it's free-to-play sub, game fortnight, battle royale launched, in September, 2017. Battle royale a format, popularized, by player unknowns, battlegrounds, and originally, inspired by the 2000. Japanese horror film battle royale is a last, player standing free-for-all. Where 100, players are dropped onto an island with an ever-shrinking, zone of engagement, and leftist, ground resources. Build defenses and fight until, only one remains, in the. Wake of the success of fortnight battle royale the original, fortnight, has been renamed, fortnight, save the world a critical. Bit of fortnight's development, comes from the involvement, of Chinese multimedia, firm $0.10 in 2012. Epic Games approached. $0.10, for help with the then-fledgling fortnight. Seeking, their input on turning the game into a live service, platform, meaning it would function as an ongoing revenue. Stream rather than simply being a single purchase product, $0.10. Agreed to help and supply additional financial resources and expertise, in exchange. For being allowed to purchase a 40%. Stake in the company an arrangement, to which epic agreed. Following. The merger a number of high-profile, staff retired, from Epic including, Cliff Bleszinski Adrian. Chmielarz, Lee Perry and Rod Fergusson all to, one degree or another citing, dissatisfaction. With either the Tencent merger the games as a service business model or both, but, that's, not, what you're here for, you don't want a history lesson play, in fortnight, into an appropriate cultural, context. You're, here for hot fortnight. Player, on player. Action. Player. Wait what did I say. So, remember to follow me on twitch TV slash I kill weed names because you can enjoy what the earth-mother gave us for that isn't the same as having, a personality. One, of the things in particular that stands out to me about the meta-narrative. Surrounding. Fort back. He. Isn't it weird how hostile, the free-to-play track, is like, it's not simply structured, to drive paying, for something or another it actually, starts. Okay. So what's all basic about a concert, Matt. Okay. So what's. All this about a concert, in fortnight, on February. 2nd 2019. Christopher, Comstock, who performs, under the DJ named marshmallow, played, a 10-minute, concert in fortnight's, pleasant partner. Or. More, accurately at 2:00 p.m. Eastern Time players who joined a special marshmallow concert, game-mode got to watch a scripted, concert, event during which weapons, and damage were deactivated, to ensure that players couldn't be griefed and that the event wouldn't be interrupted, with gunfire and explosions.
It's, Maybe a bit of a pointless hair to split the fact that the concert, was pre-recorded and, not actually, live but, I mean that's what we do here we deconstruct. Narratives, and the idea, that this was a live set was very much part of the narrative the, fiction, extended, to the fact that the mini set was added, to marshmallows, tour schedule, a significant. Component of the implicit messaging, was to demonstrate the flexibility. Of fortnight, the concept. Of fortnight. As a content. Delivery platform. As a, scripted, event utilizing, the games engines server architecture and, assets, the concert, is quite, impressive the, crowd does end up looking a little thin because it turns out 60 people per match just isn't that many if you're trying to simulate an actual audience but. Players, manoeuvring virtual bodies need a bit more space to do things than real people and keeping. The population low. Mitigated. Problems, with players who are accessing. On lower end hardware or internet connections, minimizing. The odds that they would lag out or just crash, entirely, as. A. Delivery, platform, however well. It demonstrates. The flexibility. And possibilities. That fortnight offers, if your. DJ marshmallow, the. Concert, isn't actually built in fortnight, it's, full of bespoke assets, and scripting, that could only be constructed, with the active participation of epic games, well, fortnight, has a creative. Mode that allows players to build their own spaces even, very, impressive, spaces nothing. Like this, is remotely, doable. Well. It's possible to put on a concert in fortnight, it's not possible, for you to, put, on a concert in fortnight, the. Actual audience for this specific, message is big-name, collaborators. Epic is advertising. The idea, that, fortnight, is a viable, venue, for crossover. Promotional, opportunities. This, is all part of the concept, of games as a lie. Service so we should probably spend some time disassembling. That particular narrative, concept. For, tonight isn't really, a game, like. There's, a game attached. To, fortnight, but that's not the core, of. Fortnight. Fortnight. Is first, and foremost a storefront, the. Monetization systems. In fortnight Battle Royale, are seemingly, simple on their face but, well, join. Me on a journey the, two arms of for tonight's monetization, are the battle pass and the item shop both of which are fueled by an in-game token, currency, called V Box V, bucks are used here as in most other micro transaction, based games as a means to bypass, financial, regulations, involving, held value, and some, regional laws surrounding gambling.
With Regards to the loot crate's because, in many regions it doesn't count as gambling if the currency evolved, is non fundable, basically. In a lot of places it doesn't legally count, as gambling, if you're gambling with fun bucks that can't be converted, back into legal, tender so things that utilize, all the structure, vocabulary. And psychological. Mechanisms, of gambling, like video, game loot crate's or Gacha pon toys aren't, technically. Gambling, as far as the law is concerned because. You can't convert your winnings directly, back into dollars. Additionally. The use of v bucks also allows epic to obfuscate the assigned, value of both in-game purchases and, the value of v bucks themselves. By giving buyers a bulk discount for buying more and handing, out v bucks for performing, in-game activities. Nominally. One v buck is worth just under one US cent but if you buy 10,000. V bucks at a cost of 9999. U.s. you, get an air quote bonus. 3,500. So the actual monetary, cost of anything you buy on the store varies, by about 25, percent depending on how many v bucks you bought if you're confused, that's the, point. The primary, utility of funny-money is to relieve you of the pressure and weighing if this, specific, skin is worth fifteen dollars or is. Eleven, dollars this, is on top of another really common strategy. Where the amounts, don't scale evenly, and don't line up cleanly. With the costs of actual, items increasing. The likelihood that you'll always have some left over or will, need to buy a substantial. Amount in order to get the thing that you want this. Particular bit is pretty common but Fortnite, manages, to take it to a whole new level this, is ultimately, the meaning, of game as a service, it's just a euphemism for a game that takes up all your free time and becomes the only game that you play because it's just an elaborate, constantly. Resetting, Skinner box that utilizes, progression, systems, and seasonal competition, as a means, to place you constantly, in the path of an endless stream of monetary. Interactions. To. Top it off as a game, fortnight, battle royale isn't, even particularly great, the, matchmaker, is utterly bare-bones, and pays no regard, to your performance, so you'll almost always be matched to the mix of players who are barely, functional, and several, who are so far above your skill level that you're, not even really playing the same game the building mechanics, in battle royale are unwieldy, and create a tremendous. Skill gap that contributes, to the after mentioned disparity, but they're also the, whole gimmick that the game is built around so, that's. Kind of take it or leave it the game is full of weird unpolished. Edge cases, like vehicles. All using, slightly different control. Schemes even for shared functionality. You, get on a hoverboard and the speed boost is bound to left-shift but, on a quad, crasher, boost is spacebar, even though left shift isn't bound to anything on the quad crasher, because, of the way that systems, interact, in particular the ways that the building mechanics, are vital for defending, against long-range attacks, but are also so, effective, for either closing distance, or escaping, that, the, mid-range effectively. Barely, exists, the, game biases, extremely, heavily towards shotguns, basically. Becoming a contest, of closing, distance and gaining Heights so you can land a shotgun headshot, on your opponent's if, you strip out everything else the game is a moderately. Okay shooter with a unique, twist and a compelling aesthetic, it's not dire, but, it's, kind of just barely, good enough to stand on its own without the rest of the hooks and oh. Boy. Does. Fortnight, have hooks the. Item shop is pretty grotesque when, you break down its underlying mechanics in. Contrast, to pretty much every other game on the market fortnight, only displays 10 to 13 items at a time rotating. On a daily basis. This has the dual purpose, of obfuscating. What's available and creating. A FOMO response, or fear, of missing out if you see something you like you have a limited, window in which to purchase it and with the total, inventory of products obfuscated.
There's No sense of how long it might be until, that particular item is available again or, even, if, it will ever be available again, at all, incidentally. Alfonso, Ribeiro isn't, just suing epic because his carlton dance made it into the game but because they took his work and were selling it for 8 bucks a pop, the. Other arm of the monetization system, is the Battle Pass which costs a little under $10, u.s. and ties into the seasonal progression, track system, which, is itself broken, into two tiers freed, and paid fortnight, cyclical, gameplay is broken up into ten weeks seasons, and the battle pass applies, only for a given season the, paid track just throws piles of stuff at you every tier to incentivize, playing more including. An early perk of an experience, boost next, season, just, in case you were maybe considering. Not getting the next battle past ten weeks from now what's, interesting about the free track is that it doesn't nearly make use of FOMO, psychology. It's not just, saying oh look. At all this stuff you'd get if you bought the battle pass though, I mean it is literally. Saying that right there but, in addition to that it's making use of hostile. Design, the free track actually, ends, at tier 62, though the season track goes until 100. There's no additional, free rewards past, this point from, here it's not simply a matter of a fear, of missing, out the. Entire battle past system is founded on the dopamine, rush of unlocking, something new every, few hours of play to keep players coming back within. That context. The point where the game stops giving you stuff entirely, the, game is withdrawing. The thing that is used to get you hooked it is, punishing. You for having dared play this long without, paying, this, is manufactured. Discontent. And make. No mistake you. Will have to play a lot, to, get to this point again. With the layers of deliberate obfuscation, the broad progression, systems are broken into two parts first a count level which is, self broken, into total level and seasonal, level and the, Battle Pass which we've discussed, progressing. In level, is done by earning experience, which is rewarded, at the end of every match while, progressing the battle pass is done by earning battle stars battle, stars are rewarded, and amounts ranging from two to ten for every level and for completing, challenges which. Come in daily and weekly flavors, daily. Challenges, tend to be fairly straightforward ranging. From placing, in the top twenty five to, scoring a number of takedowns with a specific weapon type while, weekly, challenges, tend to get more varied and abstract, and include things like visiting, specific, locations, on the map now, briefly, I want to touch on the psychological design, elements, of the weekly challenges, and the way that they're presented, first. There's the element of FOMO, in the completion. Reward of 5,000, XP a substantial. Amount of experience, requires, completing, four challenges, but only three, are available for free second.
The Paid battle past challenges, aren't simply locked but are turned into a mystery, box if you don't pay you, don't even get to see what they are. Tantalizing. Isn't. It you. Only need one more, you're. So, close, well. Let's go back to these tracks they're, presented, as roughly, analogous, literally. In parallel. But, progression. Along these tracks aren't, even the, gold tier players have access, to more challenges, which reward, more battle stars which in turn reward. Direct experience. On top, of experience, multipliers, gold. Players don't just get more they, get it faster, and with, less effort so. This point tier 62, it's, highly, unlikely that you'll actually get to this point without playing a lot, of fortnight, every. Single day I've, actually needed to play a lot, of fortnight, pretty much every day in the course of making this video both, in order to ensure I understood, the game itself, well enough to speak about it confidently, and also. Just to get these specific, kinds, of footage I was looking for and. At the midpoint of season, 8 I'm, less, than halfway there. This, maybe seems like I'm just complaining, about the free-to-play players not, getting enough stuff but, that's not actually the, point the, underlying purpose of demonstrating, all this is to show the mechanisms, that the creator's, are willing to employ these. Psychological, tricks are in effect a form of rhetoric a form of persuasive. Speech, they are trying to persuade, you by applying select, forms of pressure and it is I think worth, understanding the mechanisms, of that pressure so that we can better recognize, how, and when, we, are being persuaded. Also, it's worth keeping in mind that as a season. Is only ten weeks long a paid, player, can, slip back into being a free player at any time, in. Order to retain all the perks of being a, paid, player one, would need to buy all four, to five season. Passes, every. Year all of this goes hand in hand the, marshmallow concert, isn't a thing happening, in parallel, to the monetization systems. It's a core pillar the external, purpose of things like this are fairly straightforward it's a publicity stunt an oddity, that people will talk about the, cost of assembling the technical, aspects of the concert and paying comstock, for his participation, were effectively, weighted, against a direct ad buy and based. On the coverage, epoch $0.10 is probably, pretty happy with the outcome the internal, purpose, is a little, more arcane, and I wouldn't blame you if you wanted to use the word sinister, the, purpose of the concert, is to utilize the social, pressure of, exclusion. Let's. Take a closer look at a couple key moments. If, marshmallow, is calling out for you to use your favorite emo, well, if you haven't paid in odds, are, you don't have any.
Or The, ones you do have are going to be pretty generic, and, lame events. Like the concert, create environments, where the ability to self express is placed at a premium, in, order to feel like a full and active, participant. You need to be able to perform, the, catch is, that literally, every, unique, action, has an attached price, tag. And. There. Are some things that you'll simply never, get without, paying players who haven't bought a skin, don't even have control over their, basic image there, isn't a roster. Of default, looks to choose from your look is assigned, randomly, after. Every match there isn't just a layer of FOMO the sense that others around you, with cooler, more expressive, character, models are having more fun are better. Able to, project, themselves into, the social space there's, a level of hostility in. The design, if you, don't buy in you aren't merely, limited, in your options of expression, you are actively, denied, control. Over. The most basic, element, of how, you choose, to look in the virtual world nothing. That Fortnight does is particularly, new, these complex. Monetization, systems, with multiple layers of obfuscation you, can find this in pretty much any mobile, game and plenty, of desktop, and console games are laden with cosmetic. Microtransactions. Legally, dubious, gambling, and other ways to aggressively. Monetize, the game lots. Of games use progression, systems, and incremental, rewards, as part of their core loop to keep players playing, fortnight. Is really, just a maturation, of those systems a refinement. Of every. Habit-forming, trick. And micro transaction. Pressure point, developed, in the last decade, condensed. Into a weaponized, product, targeted, at kids one, of the articles that originally. Called my attention to all of this was one Nick stat wrote for The Verge titled, fortnight's, marshmallow, concert, was a busy are an exciting glimpse of the future I. Disagree. With NYX breathy, excitement. But on the whole he's right, fortnight. Is a glimpse, of the future an awful. Perpetually. Monetized, vertically-integrated. Vaguely. Hostile. Future. You.
2019-04-04 20:25
So tired of April 1st jokes that I missed out on this video until the title was changed. Also: great Lobster shirt, I bought the same one myself.
tbh fortnite is a lot better than other games because they actually let you buy the items you want rather than make you gamble for them lootbox style. you bring up the whole v-bucks thing to suggest Epic is using it to facilitate legal gambling but fortnite doesn't have loot crates :/
The only April Fools' I see here is the layers upon layers of ridiculous SPECTACLE
This episode of Black Mirror sucks.
why are you wearing a lobster shirt? Are you trying to get me to buy a Jordan Peterson book?
More like DJ Marshsellout.
I will give you a dollar per month on Patreon. I can't be arsed with setting up d.rip when I've finally convinced my bank that Patreon is not credit card fraud.
Long boring stretches of nothing important happening and no dialog for info. Thats bad youtubin.
I have heard many things of Fortnite from a parent of a kid obsessed with it, and it's wild. I didn't even KNOW there was a creative mode until this video. Also, just...the insanity of it all. Calling mom to ask if he can buy a skin because it's only here todayyyy mommm and her pushing back and making him pay for it with allowance or earn experience, or to save for something he really wants instead of spending on impulse. While in the mobile store, trying to sign in with their usernames on the new Samsung phone floor model, to get the exclusive content. (sadly, it didn't work lol.) And her sentiments being echoed by other people! On the one hand, Fortnite could be a powerful lesson on money management, saving, capitalism, etc. - and on the other hand, like you said, is creating a constantly targeted ad campaign. It's like getting the newest action figure or other fad toy on steroids.
Epic Games is a terrifying glimpse into the future of gaming. If they can not use social coercion to gain revenue, then they'll use strong arm tactics aka the Epic Store. People thought EA was bad...
Never thought I'd see an April Fools video that came down harder on F2P monetization schemes than Jim Sterling.
Thank you for being one of the few people to actually separate Save the World and Battle Royale when talking about this. Epic's big weird early access grift with Save the World that they parlayed into the Battle Royale mode always goes unmentioned now when talking about this stuff, and I think it really shades Fortnite BR as a "free service" when yeah, there were a whole lot of people paying for a 60 dollar product up front to make it happen.
@folding ideas One mistake: 14:15 - level si nto broken into 'total level' and 'seasonal level', it's broken into 'player level' and 'battle pass tier' - Your 'player' level still resets per season along with your battle pass, but the two are separate. You get 2 stars per player level, 5 stars per 5 player levels, and 10 stars per 10 player levels which apply to your battle pass. 10 'Stars' is a battle pass tier. Confusing, right?
If you go to Career you can see your account level, which is, I believe, simply a sum of all your seasonal levels.
Fortnite [normal] erotic fan fiction
I never really thought about how hostile the monitization in the game was before watching this. I am pretty good at resisting the urge to buy things I don't need and have only ever spent 10 dollars on the game because the battlepass gives you enough vbucks to buy the next season's, but my friend has spent hundreds of dollars on this game and I see now how it plays off of basic human instincts. I still like the game but now I question the ethics of Epic Games.
Why did it take 5 minutes for you to shut up and start the vid? Just don't need to do that.
I dunno, why do you hate fun?
But, we already did this stuff with SecondLife, this'll crash and burn too. I was there, I seen't it happen.
Kinda skipped over this as I don't tend to watch April fools videos, but pleasantly impressed that it still kept up the usually thought provoking style! I do wanna mention however, there is a use to in-game currency and also getting extra currency when paying more money in-game. I'll give my thoughts on this; Take a micro-transaction, say like getting an extra life early. Now lets say it costs $1 to get. You need to get the player to purchase this, and they are gonna either use something like paypal or a credit card. To use these services, you need to pay a fee. This fee usually comprises of a flat amount, plus a percentage of what is given. (Say like $0.10 + 5% of total moved.) Now whenever you get someone to buy that life, you lose 15% of the money just to transfer fees. Doesn't sound like much, but when you consider stuff like taxes, every cent counts. So in order to combat this, you could turn to packs. Get 5 of this item for like $4.99. At the same fee you only pay like 35 cents in transactions. Much better. But forcing everything into packs, leaves players unsatisfied. As they would often like to choose to only get the one they need right now. The other solution is to use an in-game currency. Spend $5 and we'll give you 1000 fun bucks. Now you can buy said life for 200 fun bucks. And you keep the benefit of not paying that much to transactions. In fact, if you let someone pay $10 instead of 2 times $5, you might as well give them the extra money you earnt as fun bucks. (e.g. An extra 10 cents worth of fun bucks, or 20 fun bucks.) That being said, it does open up a whole lot of extra can of worms, a lot of which mentioned in the video and more that weren't. This seemingly good system can get corrupted so easily, it is not even funny. To name a few: Using prices that never add up to full amounts, Using must buy now purchases, giving small amounts of money to make the player think they are progressing, but ultimately getting nowhere. And with so many games trying to nickle and dime, only a couple are gonna come out on top. Usually leaving the ones that don't screw the consumer as much in the dust. Ah well, thanks for the video. Willing to see the next one.
Just use hand-wavey lady for your new avatar, from now on
As a game dev, I really loved this video. I wouldn't mind at all if you made more videos on video games!
I feel like platform holders like you should inject the descriptor "late capitalism", or "late stage capitalism" into these scripts more often. Its a potent and accurate descriptor that ties these issues to their shared source.
I'm going to take a wild guess and say kids that are exposed to these gambling mechanics are not going to be great with money when they grow up.
I think you may be a bit too into the Fortnite Fan Fic based on the tabs open in your browser.
I agree
slime rancher is better
"Fortnite fan fiction" Excuse me?
Every time you say, "live service," I hear it in Jim Sterling's voice.
You're doing great work, kid. Thank you.
Yeah, this is the kind of stuff that turned me off of Fortnite. I was initially kind of into it, but I rapidly grew annoyed with a lot of the free features that you mentioned. I'm usually cool with this sort of thing when you can at least earn stuff just by playing, but the way it was handled here was just so blatantly "Give us money" that I couldn't stick with it. Gameplay stopped feeling rewarding and fun, I got increasingly tired of the constantly changing default character, and I quit after a week of playing because I refused to pay money to make it more rewarding.
Has anyone looked closely at the waving chicks' armpit? It is not proportional.
Oh God. People will say "late stage capitalism" but this isn't capitalism. This is literally avarice made manifest. I feel physically sick.
For the record, there are also benign reasons for the FunBucks strategy, two in specific: 1: It minimizes the number of "Points of Sale" involving real currencies. Instead of spending $5 on this thing, $2 on that thing, and $3 on a third thing, you spend $10 on a bundle on the FunBucks and then use those FunBucks to buy the stuff you want. It reduces service charges by credit card companies and allows for non-credit card methods of purchase (like the gaming cards you see in every single corner store these days). Yes, it has other, shady purposes, and that's shitty that companies abuse it, but it was created in the first place because not everyone has a credit card, and credit card companies charge based on number of purchases, not the amount purchased. 2: It makes for *much* easier price conversion and communcation in an international marketplace. Basically, games internationally have three options: Do all business in $USD and hope that Koreans, Brazilians, Germans and everyone else can figure out the conversion rates. Have everything for sale in all currencies and have to maintain, update and possibly even advertise the prices for all of the hundreds of items for each region as they values fluctuate. Or only sell the FunBucks in various prices in various regions and sell everything for those FunBucks. The third option's a pretty good middle ground, especially if you want to deal with countries with more volatile/imbalance economies. Its shitty that this method is also so easily abused, but it kinda irks me when people just state that the only reason the FunBucks systems exist is for evil, exploitative reasons. That shit can (and usually is) part of it, sure, but it's also just insanely more practical.
cough Chomsky cough
Boi you not even giving props to Minecraft Battle Arena as the first Battle Royale game.
Perpetually monetized, vertically integrated, and vaguely hostile? To quote Lindsay Ellis, “that’s capitalism.” ...and also why I don’t play Fortnite. Well, to be fair, that style of game has never really appealed to me in the first place, but after such a deep dive into it’s underlying marketing tactics... yeah... hard pass. Wonderfully presented, as usual, Dan! Thank you for posting ☺️
Darn, this isn't talking about what I thought it was going to be talking about. I thought it was going to go into why epic keeps making great changes and then metaphorically goes "Psych!!!" moments later by making a horrible, heart tearing change in the next update...revert....revert....revert....
The battle sequence around 4~ minutes is too long to mentally maintain the original intent of the video. And too many random scenes to be memoriable. Maybe narrow-in your editing skills there.
Amazing job. As someone who spent more than I'd care to say on a free-to-play mobile game once, this hit really close to home. I especially loved the section discussing FOMO, and the rhetoric behind these spaces. We think of persuasive architecture as placing candy bars in the aisle of the grocery store checkout at a child's eye level -- here, the entire grocery store is designed to entice the child, and nobody is talking about it.
epic games are still scum got it
Fifty Shades of Paywall
hey,the vidiots wge theme song is featured in this video. this triggers decent memories.
The best thing anybody has ever had to say about Fortnight: "ALL I KNOW IS BACK IN MY DAY IF SOMEONE STARTED SHOOTING AT YOU, YOU SHOT BACK. YOU DIDN'T BUILD A MOTHERFUCKING DUTCH COLONIAL" - Zodiac Motherfucker Itso. Fatso.
This makes me happy that I don't like the kind of game that Fortnite is. I'm trapped in MTG Arena right now, but its monetization is much less aggressively manipulative.
paused the video to check out your tabs and now i understand those tweets about fortnite fanfiction from a while back
Huh. Now I know why I didn't find the game that gripping before I started buying skins, and why I felt no incentive to play it again after I decided I wasn't going to spend any more money on it.
Taking dances moves is one thing, but taking a small time artist original art and claim it as is own is hitting a new rock bottom for Epic.
Second Life waves at you from the past.
Thanks I hate it - jk good video -
Don't forget that Fortnite has a *lot* of elementary school age players. Fortnite is probably the most commonly played game in elementary schools next to Minecraft. It's the Super Mario Bros of their generation.
Not sure if you exactly did enough research on this to be honest. For one you forgot to mention marshmallow also got an emote (3 different dances actually) given to everyone the weekend of the concert so no one felt left out and a marshmallow pickaxe they can keep forever, second you don't mention that by having save the world players get free V-Bucks everyday. Personally I have about a $300 inventory on fortnite but I've spend a total of $25, I purchased the season 2 battle pass for $10 and I purchased save the world off of a 3rd party website for $10 and got the most recent starter pack. Save the world gives a daily challenge every day rewarding 50vbucks so 1500vbucks a month give or take, and has login bonuses rewarding 10000 vbucks over the span of a year in forms of 50, 150, 300, 500, 800, 1000 vbuck rewards. The battle pass alone pays for every battle pass after the first if you save the vbucks for it. Yes they try and milk money off of whales but what can you do to stop that.
this is why i hate most games now and why i have stopped playing... oh and fuck fortenite in their lofty yah yah L.A. based studio headquarters with their two faced L.A. mentality.
Epic Games is in North Carolina...
Weren’t concerts in second life and even coalchella in Minecraft pioneers in this kind of thing? It’s kind of dumb how this is portrayed as history when it’s really not even new to the gaming scene
_STOP WAVING_
I would love to hear your analysis of animal crossing (pocket camp and DS).
If the seasons are 10 weeks, why is it called "Fortnite?"
Because it was originally just about building forts in the day and defending them at night.
Thanks for changing the thumbnail. I didn't watch the video at first as I assumed it would just be an April Fools joke. I am glad that there was an interesting video underneath.
It's not a wave, its a cry for help.
All of these tricks and tactics remind me of mobile Games. I've played enough of those to recognize a money machine masked as entertainment. I will never ever play games like this. If live service games are the future of video games, then I'm out. But I think, there is still hope. Indie games keep getting better and there is this tiny spark of hope, that the AAA industry will find out, that "games as live services" or "the Oasis" is a wet dream that will crash and burn as soon as the fad is over and players stop being interested in games like this
I'd love to see people break down the different systems like this in games more.
I wonder who else noticed all the fortnite erotic fan fiction tabs.
Why's this in Laura Platt's Undertale song playlist?
I came out around the time I was playing fortnite and this video made me realise that the game made me spend money on it *as a result of me being trans* The 50% chance of my expression within the game being a dude was excruciating. ;-;
this is best video you have ever made, good pivot
Garbage cosmetic-heavy microtransactions like these create an interesting discussion topic for me and my friends. I'm someone who can fall for impulse-buy psychology seen in games like Fortnite (big reason why I won't play it), but my friends are largely unaffected. Their opinion roughly goes, "Meh, they're just cosmetics. They don't really mean anything," to which my argument is: isn't that powerful commentary on the gaming industry as a whole? For many people, Fornite is a great game, but how much BETTER could it be if the higher-ups weren't obsessing over useless fluff "content"?
I imagined Dan waving frantically in the sound booth recording this.
Wait... so this was all just an April Fool's, right? Surely the contemporary gaming monetization philosophies aren't actually this exploitative. Right? Right?
A good breakdown of the game, but the bizarre misuse of terms was totally unjustified. The "psychological tricks" are no more a form of rhetoric than any game mechanic is to encourage certain behavior, and conflating forms of conveying information is not helpful, and it is still clear how these tricks are literally and fundamentally not speech.
Except many of them are quite literally a matter of placing specifically worded phrases in front of you at calculated moments and are literally speech.
My good Sir, may I kindly suggest changing your background from white to any other color, especially for your late night viewers sake? Otherwise, an extensively researched and a very well written essay. Well done.
shut up raf :@
My arm is getting tired just from watching your avatar wave for so long... Is that weird?
the last 3 words sent chills down my spine.
So...the frantic waving is durably hilarious.
Yeah I used to play a MOBA and it was rife with this lootbox gambling and obscene grab-it-while-you-can pressure for cosmetics and weekly challenges to entice continuous participation. And two tiers of in-game currency which could be bought at stupid prices with real life money! I stopped playing for other reasons but man it actually became a humorously bitter talking-topic when the luck of the box would give me a fancy skin or vehicle or an XP-booster but not my teammate, or vice-versa. And the matchmaking kinda sucked too so really what was the point of skill. The real damn worst part is that I'm an adult and was not super affected by the gambling and social pressures of an online multiplayer game, but other people will be, and Fortnite is *aimed at children*. Yikes.
Honestly, I prefer the battle pass system over lootboxes, but I do wish the in-game store either wasn't there or didn't rotate, because yeah, that does get annoying, especially when the skins there generally cost more than the battle pass itself (and also has totally gotten money out of me >_>;;) The battle pass itself I think is fine when you consider games like WoW or FFXIV which take a sub fee to play at all. A premium account is okay, and generally the sum of the stuff on the pass is worth it to me especially considering how much they charge for individual stuff, though it absolutely could be done in a way more friendly way even if this was just about the battle pass in a vacuum. I still like Fortnite though, even if I havn't played in a good while. I prefer the aesthetic it has over like PUBG, it runs better, and honestly the way they slowly change the island over the course of seasons is a neat way of keeping people engaged without money being involved, watching this place you spend time in slowly getting altered, and theorizing how it might change next. I get the gameplay complaints, I do wish building wasn't super OP, its frustrating to be against someone who can suddenly materialize a tower because they have ultimate twitch reaction skills, though the gunplay and vehicle controlls generally feel fine to me, and I kinda forgive the matchmaking considering you're in a game with 100 other people so I feel its a little unfeasable to get 100 people who all have the same level of skill as you - and the sheer amount of people honestly levels the playing field by the end. I get why people dislike Fortnite, I aknowledge its got issues, but I've still had fun with it, and thats the main thing I care about.
One thing you mentioned on Twitter that I didn't hear in the vid was that this manufactured discontent is largely targeted at kids, who are even more susceptible to these practices.
I would really love to see something like this but put in comparison with something like Second Life. SL has been a 'live service' for a long time, and while much of the economy is built on microtransactions via funny money... About 99% (that's a guess) of content is made by players of the game. The value of L$ also is based on some sort of economy so the amount you get doesn't vary by these weird, obfuscated functions that adjust the price by the quantity purchased, but instead some actual economy. I remember seeing people I knew who play or have played SL laughing about the Marshmello concert in fortnite because lol I can log on SL and see a DJ play an actual live set nearly any time. There are game modes that include shooter aspects, but nothing like an actual tiered system like this. I'd be curious to see how much, if at all, came companies have looked at it and things like it for ideas on how to craft live services (rather than just 100% looking at the mobile game market). I really liked this video though, Dan, and you always do such a great job breaking down topics like this in a very digestible manner. :)
Wait a minute. This isn't an April's fool. Is that the fool? I'm confused.
Fortnite is the ugliest most blatant rendition of the AAA corporate drive of "Games as Live Services" with the actual "Game" part becoming less and less pronounced and the "Live Service" (predatory micro-transactions) becoming the actual "content." It is the absolute opposite of "Games as art" ideal some people actually want realized in the industry, a shallow, bland, uninteresting, uninspired, trend-seeking monster created for the sole purpose of targeting teennagers to fork out ridiculous amount of cash in micro-transactions, knowing full well most teenagers are not fiscally reasonable enough to resist or have any awareness of how predatory in-game storefronts work.
Hum... I think it's kinda interesting to think of "fortnite as art". I agree, conceptually it's bland, uninteresting, uninspired, trend seeking monster created for the sole purpose of getting a targeted audience to fork over unreasonable amounts of money for a product that ultimately provides little value beyond perhaps 'personal expression'. That said. I think that's kinda the literal definition of "kitsch art". If video games are art, than games like fortnite represent the ultimate kitsch of the artform.
You're gonna love Jim Sterling man. He's been saying the same thing for years with a stronger sarcastic but just as cutting an edge. I still remember the rush of realizing i wasn't the only one seeing the insane monetization and pressures in mobile pricing (that's not just regular pricing) schedules.
him and jim have been friends for a while, so the love is already there.
It's hard for me to watch these kinds of videos without comparing the subject to my personal poison of choice: Warframe. Especially now that the Nightwave update has essentially introduced its own "battle pass" system. When compared directly is often ends up looking pretty good. The monetization in Warframe is pretty fair and pretty lightly pushed compared to what these games tend to do, but the skinner-box tricks to keep people coming back day in and day out are present and polished to a mirror shine. Just blatant enough to be effective without going far enough as to be actively offensive. People generally buy in to Warframe because they feel they've gotten enough out of the game that it deserves some of their cash, rather than because there's any single thing they particularly want. And while "give people a good enough experience that they feel you deserve their money" is hardly the most insidious business model an F2P game can have, the tactics used to keep people playing long enough that they feel that way are often far from saintly. It's not terrible, and I do continue to dip in and out of Warframe as I have since its early beta days, but these kinds of videos remind me how far from perfect it is, even if it's better than a lot of the competition.
Only true lobsters buy the Battle Pass
her head is so tiny, that disturbs me so much more than i thought it would
Damn, ur investigative journalism is legit important to me.
what insightful video. knowing this, its kind of sad that the in thing for kids to play a few years ago was minecraft. That game looks like a saint when you compare it to how this store subtlety tries to get you to pay for things in its included game mode, and kids dont even know that they're being manipulated in this way either. eww.
You thought it was April Fools, but it was me! An informative video!
Ah man, I never thought I could hate Epic more than I already have, thank you for expanding my fury
Now do Halo. Bobble your head like there's no tomorrow.
Thank you for this one. It was a beautiful reminder of why I try to avoid games like these now.
Yeah I did some testing for fortnite back before they added Battle Royal, and I loved the game and was playing the moment we got an alpha release but BR made me quit, I didn't enjoy it, the mechanics were ill suited for it and it started getting all the support. Which is a shame I still love save the world.
The tone of this feels so weird now that I'm also constantly thinking about "waving = talking" the entire time.
L O B S T E R S ps: Fortnite is entergagement
is that a Jordan Peterson shirt? lmaooo
To sum the video up in one word: Capitalism
Um, excuse me? You did not just stop at Battle Royale, the movie. Originally, it was a book. Thanks.
excuse me, you first mention the manga, and then you will say it was a novel while making note that it has the number of the beast as pages.
Man, your arm must be absolutely knackered after all that "talking".
Not one Floss? Is this even a video about Fortnite?
That lobster shirt. Daddy
Nice video, Dan. Guess I'll just keep playing Snake on my phone then.
I first suspected Fortnite was evil when I saw scribbled on a grade school wall in chalk "Fortnite rules".
I haven't purchased a battle pass since season 3 (the season I started) and yet I have had access to every single seasons battle pass....if you buy save the world for 20 dollars when it's on sale (which is very often), not only do you get a decent game but you get enough free vbucks to buy 4-5 skins and the next battle pass for free every season....It's really not a bad pay model and while I hate most paid models in games these days, harping on fortnite when it has a very very mild one, and IS FREE TO PLAY (therefore it must make money somehow) is hardly the best target to make your point.
Although v-bucks and similar currencies are a way to circumvent gambling laws, I fail to see the gamble when their are no loot boxes.
Marshmello himself gave an insight into the behind the scenes, and while yes, the set and animations were scripted his voice was in fact live.
Holy shit this video is good. I can't belive I never heard of you before and first did with an april fools video. Every point here is exactly what I was trying to communicate to friends but couldn't find the right words to. Also that weed joke was genius too, 100% agree about personality
Incidentally, Alfanzo Rivera stole that dance form Belinda Carlisle.
Uhh, didn't Carlton steal that dance from someone else, too? Lol
I don’t get fortnites popularity, the art style and image of the game clashes unbelievably hard with the core gameplay loop and the building is just so gimmicky. I want to understand the game but I just can’t...
Your Fortnite avatar looks like the female human models for World of Warcraft after they updated the character models.. The big cartoony eyes and over-exaggerated facial movements are a dead ringer for a Warcraft Humans.
I think this is a decent video, but I think it misses out something in regards to the Switch version 1) Buying games on the switch online store gives you gold points which can be spent on discounts for other games 2) Gold points can also be used to purchase vbucks 3) There is enough vbucks on the battle pass to be able to save up and purchase the next battle pass. So you can probably see where I'm going with this.
Fornite killed Unreal Tournement. It stole all those dumb kids away from a much better game. And now we're here, at live services. This is your fault gamers.
Sick
Huh... and this is an example of why I am *extremely* distrustful of anything free-to-play. It took two very good friends over a year to convince me to give Warframe a shot. Two other friends have, and will continue to, fail at convincing me to play Fortnite.
Just go to Second Life if you want to throw a virtual concert.
So... we've reached the cultural moment in which people have entirely forgotten about Secondlife.
I don't really want to know if fortnite vore incest fanfic is a thing, but damned if I'm gonna google it anyway...
The first four minutes are really obnoxious, past the point of being meta for a joke
Holy shit you are very pretensions, making references to Chomsky in you title.
creators like you give me hope for youtube :)
I actually bought the original Fortnite, it seemed super cool at the time. But I barely played it after launch, in part because I'm not a fan of the battle royale format, and mostly because it didn't have singleplayer. It was a perfectly adequate tower defence type game, with a neat little story, ruined by the fact that it was almost entirely online.
Every thinkpiece, article, or video about games that talks about the evils of using a "dopamine rush" and the "psychological tricks" of a game has been total horseshit based on literally nothing, and this is no different. There is no basis for the claims you make, other than that you want them to be true. You make authoritative claims about how victimizing F2P games are that are the same tier as Jack Thompson's fucking nonsense. And I say this as someone who never has an never will play Fortnite, and has spent a total of 5 dollars on FTP games in the course of ten years.
If it was "total horseshit based on literally nothing" then why are EA, Activision, and Epic hiring psychologists to help them design their monetization systems?
+Gnome de Plume Do I have a single shred of evidence to support the claim that he is advancing claims without evidence? Do you know what words mean or are you just aping the form of other arguments you have seen?
do you have a single shred of evidence to support your claim? Because they are predatory and they do encourage addictive behaviour and you only have to look at every game that employs these systems to see it plain as day
Those browser tabs tho…
I always thought games as a service was just an annoying monetization model. Now I realize it is actually a sinister method of trying to grind away at your will power to drain money from you by crafting every visual element and progression tracker in the game to torture you with possibility
fornite erotic -vore -incest
So Fortnite is basically the Studio 54 of the Internet?
So ... Could you tell people PSO did it first, having a concert I mean
Is this music by Alex Mauer?
Interesting!
I feel like this concert was just Fortnite hopping onto what altspaceVR is doing with live groups, events, and meetups in VR. Except it's shit.
Why does that waving make me so irrationally angry?
Thank you for your April fools day video only having jokes and not just being a joke
This video feels like its intending to argue against something but instead of using arguments relies on, I dunno, negative analogies. I'm ambivalent about Fortnite's monetization system also, but I think can make that point in a less obviously biased manner.
I played the save the world version before I realized I was basically in a grind wasting my time. Got to like level 40 or something. I think I musta got to the manufactured discontent point and said "fuck it then im done", not the intended effect. But it has worked on me before in other games that were highly addictive, and I wasted several hundred dollars then before i learned my lesson the first time. And I have a pretty unaddictive personality too. Well made I was expecting to close out a few min in.
I can't even take this seriously as a joke. Somebody please murder fortnight before my students start actually stabbing each other in real life over game sessions.
I really disliked the gunplay so much when I tried earlier last year. And the hooks don't necessarily interest me. So, I am totally Fortniteless and feel so out of touch and old lol.
that ending was brutal
that avatar is so cute her eyes are soo big!
i think past being a promotional stunt for fortnite itself, the marshmallow concert is an advertisement to other intellectual properties that Epic-Tencent is open for cross-promotional content as one of their revenue streams. Either next season or the season afterwards I expect epic to start hosting these events semi regularly, and I expect they'll be getting paid for it. I think this concert was something of a pilot for "Fortnite as an advertisement platform", and I think Epic-Tencent sees this as a potentially enormous revenue stream for them.
I watched that clip of Dan getting ganked from behind like the Zapruder film.
God the art design in Fortnite is hideous
dan where to cop shirt
4:20 that is not a no-scope! THAT IS NOT A NO-SCOPE! A no-scope is a hip-fired killed with a sniper rifle. You were ADS-ing! A! D! S-ing!
+Folding Ideas Lol I figured that was going on after a while.
I planted a few deliberately underwhelming/fairly normal takedowns in there with puffed up graphics as an easter egg for people who would know that "115m basically the furthest shot possible!" is, in fact, not that impressive even if the shot was pretty funny.
The one critique I would have about your argument is the part about the Carlton Dance and Alfonso, is that the dance literally isn't even Carlton's, he stole it from somewhere else. Either way, he was only doing it because Fortnite was popular, tons of other games have used the dance and he didn't attempt a lawsuit. He just saw the big bucks in Fortnite.
The browser tabs at the end are an excellent touch. I salute you.
Wait when you showed the article you had like 5 tabs fortnite fan fiction open. I SEE YOU!
I fucking love deconstruction,it's oddly addictive
seeing this made me realize/remind that when i played fortnite a while back with a friend he pushed so much the idea of buying the battle pass now i kinda now why
It's one thing to hear about these FOMO effects and just brushing it off, but Anthem does the same thing with its store and I was legitimately tempted to buy stuff thanks to the manipulation. I'm not really someone who dislikes microtransactions, but I think it creates a problem when you combine them with predatory gambling-lite practices.
OMG those Google tabs at 20:34.
Thank god for Dan.
Thank you for terrifying me.
Man now that you showed into detail those kind of monetisation tactics, especially the seasonal rewards that stop after a certain point for the non paying player is straight up pulled from out a drug dealer page when presenting a new product to his clients.
While I don't disagree with your points I think choosing to never consider value for investment takes a very surface approach when looking at ways in which things are sold and advertised. For instance, you make a point of saying that anyone who wants to stay "gold" instead of free to play has to "buy the battle pass 4 or 5 times a year", but ignore the fact that each battle pass contains enough unlockable vbucks to purchase the next season battle pass. Meaning you at most have to buy 1 and you're good from then on. And the battle passes have consistently delivered a quality assortment of items with the challenge system making it fun and interesting to work your way up the tiers (assuming you're not trying to just grind out 100 tiers on week 1 of the season). Ultimately I'm mostly surprised you gave a pass to the prices on things in the store. If anything about fortnite's monetization system feels sketchy to me it's their pricing. $20 for a skin should be a special occasion thing, not a normal everyday price.
Thank you for making actual content on April first. I avoided it yesterday because I avoid everything on April first.
I appreciate the thought put into this video and the argument you put forth. You're wrong, though. Fortnite's ahead of the game from an ethics standpoint right off the bat since all purchases are purely cosmetic-only. All the content, gameplay-wise, is 100% free and available from the start, as well. How many F2P games can say that? Even within the realm of cosmetics, Fortnite's more of an example I wished more games would follow than not. No loot boxes, what you see is what you get, and there is a clear delineation between store purchases and "achievement-based" battle pass unlocks. Nobody's gonna rip your John Wick skin off, you earned the privilege. The FOMO and (again, *strictly* cosmetic holy shit that's way better than otherwise) "hostility" toward non-battle pass players is cynical, yes. But damn man we all know this live service model nonsense is here to stay, and if I had my say, I'd much rather be assured that I can play the fucking game normally than to child-proof the dinosaur costumes
Wow, an "It's *just* cosmetic!" defense in the wild *takes photos*
I actually had a whole bit that I was lukewarm on including, because it was a late addition, about how cleverly they've hacked the Core Gamer mentality, deliberately constraining things to only "good" microtransactions, thus ensuring that no matter how predatory they get Gamerz will come out of the woodworks to defend them.
What I'm getting from this: Venture capitalist "tech bros" want us to believe in the Matrix so they can monetise everything we do in their nonsense constructed spaces.
So this is why Fortnite is bad.
Excellent video. Fortnite might be fun on the surface but holy hell is its heart black and corrupt.
One thing I will say in Fortnite's defence is that at least it IS free to play; as manipulative as these tactics are, at least it's clear that they are an optional 'cost of entry'. I find this stuff a lot more nauseating when it's attached to a paid title.
didn't know Jim Sterling was writing your script now
How is the waving giving me motion sickness???
When will I learn to stop ruining good videos for myself by going to the comments section
Nice shirt
The Progression of those tabs... Dan...
FINALLY new Folding Ideas. Fuck yeah
Legit described live services far better than Jim Sterling, the loudest hater of AAA industry. Props.
Depressing stuff
Pivot!!
Lol @ Orange Pump.
Loved it. Agree with you on most of your points. I would like to bring up maybe a counter point. Just got into fortnite in the tail end of season 7. I wanted to play free to play at first but ended up buying the battle pass for 8. I leveled up 4 times as fast with the battle pass because of constant xp bonuses that you unlock threw play. I spent 10 bucks on the game in total but already have enough V-bucks for the next battle pass. I kinda think the battle pass was worth it. I wont spend anymore on the game and will probably be able to get the battle pass every season based on the v-bucks I unlock. (Granted i wont have enough vbuck to get emotes outside the BP) Just a thought, love your vid.
hot take the best "in-game concert" was when all of those probably-not-super-great emo-ish bands played a show within that old flash mmo adventurequest,
@Folding Ideas See UX "Dark Patterns", intentionally designing a user experience not in the interest of the primary user. They are everywhere.
Fuck, I remember limited time availability of cash store items, as well as loot boxes in GW2. I was extremely susceptible to it, spent over €2000 in total and just hoarded all the rare limited-edition items I had. Teens with Fortnite gambling habits are going to be a problem.
You made me watch a fortnite video. Congratulations
I've played "games as service" models since as long as I can remember. It started with MMOs and now others are following suit. I prefer it over any other model because there's little sunk costs. I can cancel a subscription whenever I want, and I'm not going to ever 'complete' the game that's perpetually updated. In the almost 2 year life span of Fortnite I've paid less towards it than a single AAA game. Its gameplay has more depth than any other shooter that exists. I've played FPS' for a decade, and nothing has come close to the depth that building and editing adds. Everything else in comparison is mindless and boring. The psychological aspects of the storefront are, of course, playing on young children's lack of impulse control. That being said, it remains better than any other monetisation service offered on other games.
Those chrome tabs killed me.
It get's kinda sad when you take all this information and merge it with the fact that the fornite community in itself has a pretty nasty take on "default skins"(players who haven't purchased any skins and are assigned the default character models), I've clicked on a couple fortnite youtubers over time and some of them were pretty vicious towards "defaults" so your bits about taking away player skins and creating a sense of missing out is even further pushed by the community itself, defaults are looked at with a kind of disdain by at least a part of the fornite community and it certainly has created a kind of "in group" mentality amongst some of the actively paying players. I could see some people being shamed into buying a skin especially since the main audience is children, god just thinking about how maybe some kids have even been bullied at school for having default skins is sad.
*sees video and is ready to dislike, but gives the video a chance because this is a great channel and another amazing video*
20:33 is the best part
this really is a good video, thank you for it, and keep them coming even if it's not April 1st
I hope the downvotes you're going to get when the fortnite kids show up are worth it. Also I hope I'm wrong, but they tend to be predictable...
It really doesn't help that (Western) games are following this idea. [I say Western because I'm not including games from Japan since they probably use different methods of microtransactions or are like nintendo and they don't have any microtransactions what so ever.] ...Pretty soon these methods in video games might show up in a textbook for a Business Major.
Released a day ago? April 2nd?
Please make more game related content, this was very enjoyable to watch!
That waving emote is so distracting.
*"BOOGIE. BOOGIE. BOOGIE. BOOGIE. BOOGIE. BOOGIE-"*
Game isnt even very fun. Dont let vampires take your money.
Even though what most of you said is more or less accurate, I think you're being quite unfair here either by omitting information, or by misunderstanding certain aspects. Fortnite has arguably one of the best FTP economies out there. They don't have loot boxes, and the content is really good. Just compare the items you can get in something like Apex Legends to this game and the difference in quality and variation is striking. Also, if you have the battle pass, and play just a couple of hours a week, you have a very good chance of earning enough in-game currency to buy the next pass. If you play more, you even get some left over to spend in the store. Don't get me wrong, Fortnite has a lot of problems. You do a very good job of describing the psychological hooks, but these come with all FTP games unfortunately. You could also argue that the shop items themselves are overpriced, but looking at the pricing in other games these days, I don't think that argument is worth that much anymore :( Anyways, interesting video for being an "April's fools" post :)
Suddenly glad I never cared enough to play
Battle Royale was a book before it was a movie, but I'm not sure that's important.
As a Warframe and Destiny player I HATE your definition of game as a service. It is not untrue, but. But. (Warframe and Destiny are good games.)
the tab gag at 20:30 absolutely kills me
I sure can't wait for federal elections and political debates to happen inside game spaces where premium voters can snipe me as I make a run for the voting machines.
Holy crap I didn’t know there was a word for that feeling after mobile games stop giving you rewards..
*anymore
That ending gave me shivers.
awesome video. really, really insightful and comprehensive.
Basically, "Player number one", but, instead of a "good creator", like in the book/film, the greedy corporations had the control since day one.
what's the song at the start of the video in the background?
You know, the more we get closer to the "future", the more I long for the basic, cyberpunk-est kinds of dystopia that fiction used to present to us: They were awful, sure, but they were at least honest about it.
I’m playing Save the World while listening to this.
This is such a good video. Gamers are eating up the F2P model right now,,thinking they're more consumer friendly, but all it ensures is that instead of all gamers paying $60 up front, some players get to pay nothing while a small group of people pay upwards of $1000 to keep the game running. Even if you only buy stuff from time to time, ultimately you'll end up spending far more than $60.
I watched streams of the game early on in its life, and I completely thought that the lack of character choice was just an oversite destined to be fixed later. That's completely obnoxious.
this is the lead-up to that one episode of Black Mirror where all events are attended by your avatar, and even flushing the toilet is a microtransaction. And the one guy that's questioning it, gets turned into a monetized show despite his attempts to escape..
As an EDM fan, I never really liked Marshmello. As a gamer, I was okay with fortnite until it got over-saturated and I got tired of hearing 10 year olds talk about it, but I was glad that they moved on from Minecraft so that I could enjoy it again. Mainly, I like story-based games, and dislike high-tech microtransactions. Why am I not at all surprised to hear that Marshmello and Fortnite did...something...together?
"Greed... greed never changes."
Is this the actual music that plays during the game? Its awful.
this is such a goooood video
Well at least you didn't complain about live services then ask me to support you on patreon right after like most hypocrites on here
But you should though
Suffering for the rest of us don't have to. I salute you, sir.
The progession of tabs at 20:37 is amazing.
"Well that escalated quickly."
great video and awesome approach to the 1stofduckingApril video, i LOVE it. 1st of april is a bad boring day on YT , thanks even more than usual for your work
very cool
I too, am scared of the future we are stepping into.
I don't like loot boxes or the rng, but it isn't gambling. Gambling is risking your money and a high chance of getting nothing in return. Getting something that isn't what you wanted isn't the same thing. It's shitty and predatory, and I wish it wasnt a thing, but calling it something it isn't is making it harder to get those with actual power, like country officials creating anti loot box policies, for example, to do something about it.
Games of chance are gambling. They may not legally be Gambling, and the stakes, quite literally, may be much lower, but if we were playing dice for actual peanuts it would still be gambling. Your brain doesn't care if it's peanuts, rift shards, v bucks, or US dollars.
20:34 I know this is a weird tab gag and fake and I'm used to it but what does Google think?
Wow... subbed half-way through. What a video!
My only complaint would be that, as a person with a gambling problem, I have to say that loot boxes ARE missing one key component of the black hole of gambling, at least for me. The fact its all skins and funny money with no extractable cash value is key, because when I'm gambling in a casino I never stop, because when this next hand wins all the ones that lost don't matter and I can buy a house, there is NEVER that possibility with loot boxes, or with any of the other disgusting micro transaction BS, sure, you might get tricked into paying 10x or more what you would have trying to get something, but there is never that voice in the back of your head whispering 'Don't stop now, one win and all the loses are gone!'.
The waving is insanely obnoxious, its crazy that you chose that for this video, like i'm supposed to watch that loop for minutes at a time.
i started fortnite i can't use a costum character i deleted fortnite
I can't wait till Unreal Engine itself gets the fortnite treatment, bleughhh
You're saying the Fortnite matchmaking is bad, essentially. But I've heard that it's actually meant to be the way it is: to have a big mix of different skill levels in each match. A large part of the community seems to like it that way: https://www.reddit.com/r/FortNiteBR/comments/9jnf6x/why_doesnt_the_fortnite_community_want_skillbased/ Here's Ninja's take on it (from June 2018): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cIWTFipBDMo I'm also fairly sure there's more to say about whether or not Fortnite is "good" as a shooter. You're making it sound like what you're saying is completely obvious, but really what you probably mean (right?) is at your level of play, without building entering into it in a big way, it's very simplistic. I'm not saying the polar opposite is true either. No comment on the psychological stuff.
Excellent breakdown - I am playing Path of Exile right now, which also has an incredibly transparent case of manufactured discontent; Every few months there is a content patch, and that content patch will introduce a new class of items - and if you want to exploit these items, you will be required to accumulate *and store* a large number of them... yet space in Path of Exile is not free. It takes a typical or casual player up to 90 hours to complete the main campaign of Path of Exile - and in that time, they'll not want for inventory space - but once they get to the endgame, which is considered where the game _really_ starts... it is utterly impossible to continue with the free inventory space. Path of Exile even goes so far as to explicitly allow 'mule' accounts - so long as you do not have more than 2 active at once. The inventory requirements to be efficient in endgame content are so spectacular that simply muling items can substract hours from your play session - because there is not merely a space problem but an organizational one. And for stack-able items, whatever you space you allocate to organizing them, just one more item could devastate your efforts and multiply complexity... and you just want to play the game!!! And for this there are specialized stash tabs for these stackable items - that organize them and keep them all in one spot - and can potentially perform the role of potentially HUNDREDS of individual stash tabs... the Map tab being I think fairly inarguably necessary to play Path of Exile at all in the endgame. Is it worth it? Of course... that's kind of the point. It's created a value. I don't know of it was intentional or not, but certainly later additions have been. For all of these things, it's not that the people responsible are necessarily bad people, it's just that the actions are exploitative and should be societally curtailed. It's not their problem it's everyone's.
"Battle Royale" why do people never mention the book?
Because no one ever read it
Really regretting siding with them over pubg now considering i was only ever interested in the save the world mode, atleast in that mode it takes under 20 hours to be able to unlock multiple skins, not just one
jesus. Wildcat's arm must be killing her. i mean... besides the sweaties in soccer outfits.
Marshmello is basically listened to by high-school/middle school kids, and that's their main demographic for fortnite. It's very obvious the reason they chose marshmello rather than someone like Michale buble, they're marketing towards kids.
probably your best video. FINALLY someone explained Fortnite to an old fart like me! A giant Chinese backed time guzzler designed to drain all your energy, time and money, good got it! SIGGGGHHHH
Wasn't he actually live tho? The events are scripted, sure, but I could've sworn I heard an interview with him about his voice doing a quick test an hour before the concert with a "Test, 1,2.." or something and twitter freaked out for a bit wondering what that was a bout
Amazing video. Very well researched and explained wonderfully. This really needs to be viewed by more parents.
What is this effing concert in the park on Fortnite? This is a battle royale game what the hell is this live music thing happening. Im so confused, kids are on my lawn
Looking at your recordings, coinciding the dates with the item shops shown... If you wanted to be matched up with "equally skilled" players, then why didn't you do Arena Mode? You played so much time to understand the game, right? You had to see the splash screen whenever you logged in, didn't you? Also the Marsh Walk was free. It was given as a challenge reward. Some great work, but you've got a fair bit more research to do.
+Folding Ideas I can't argue that. And Team Rumble is the best mode hands down. Disco Domination would have been better in it's previous state but they messed it up by removing the center point so matches become a slow and stale slog
Because the default matchmaker being not particularly sophisticated was a tertiary point in a tertiary point? And this would be a whole separate topic, but there's a HUGE difference in the psychology between general play and ranked modes, and the existence of a ranked mode doesn't excuse a shoddy matchmaker in unranked. If you look at any other popular contemporary game, DOTA2, League, HotS, Starcraft 2, they all still use a weighted matchmaker for unranked play. It is, granted, typically a lot more lenient than the ranked matchmaker because unranked players are typically going to value shorter queues over more rigorously matched games where ranked players are much more tolerant of longer queues (see also: every high ranked play streamer who took up Hearthstone on the side while they wait for their queue) but matches where you get utterly routed are the oddity and not the norm. So there's a lot to talk about there, it just wasn't particularly relevant to the topic of the video. Also Team Rumble was just generally a better mode for getting fun/readable footage out of. I'm pretty sure I only used 1-2 clips out of the 40 some odd Battle Royale matches I played.
+Folding Ideas Lol woops, my bad. I was thinking of Keep it Mello, which does 3 random dances over a single doofy one no one ever uses because it's so doofy. But why were you avoiding the arena modes though? They're comp. matchmaking which put you against similarly ranked opponents
I literally included a screenshot of the store page for the Marsh Walk.
Awesome video!
Speaking of FTP, Warframe.... Warframe... I just spent $150 on that game, no regrets.
Wonderfully done video. I'd be very interested in seeing a breakdown of the toxicity and unethical dark-side of influencer marketing in the gaming space. Particularly with 'affiliates' and youtube product 'reviews'
I think you missed an important part You only got to pay the Battle Pass ONE time. The BP gives you enough currency (and a tiny bit more) to buy the next one next season . Also, this season they gave it away for free (after you completed FREE challenges). You could say "yeah, but they could expend the currency in another thing", and you would be right, that's also part of their bussiness. But right now we are seeing that for the first time, someone could get all future battle passes free. I still agree with most of what you said. I just wanted to point this out
If you play pretty heavily you'll hit the "buy next season" point around the middle of the season, maybe a week 6 or 7, which means there's 3-5 weeks (plus overtime) for them to throw something in your path to make you feel like the V Bucks are burning a hole in your pocket. Add the Overtime challenges to that and you're putting players in a head space where you're convincing them they can go ahead and spend their V Bucks because "there's another chance." And here's the thing: yeah, some players totally can pull that off. A whole bunch, probably. Most won't. It's like how some people actually do get incredibly rich off of MLMs. I'm not particularly interested in "technically possible" when the lure of "possible" is the trick in the first place.
hmmm a good vid on the weirdest day good job again
I very much enjoyed this video, thank you.
Those tabs at time 20:40..... Hilarious
Your fanfiction search woes made me laugh out loud. good game.
“A concert in a game? That sounds fun!” *a few minutes later* “...Oh.”
I can’t help but be struck by the similarities to real life privilege, particularly how having money makes things cheaper and peer pressure being used to get you to buy stuff you otherwise wouldn’t.
Fold-man, any Sekiro content in the works? The Bloodborne video is how I found your channel
I dunno yet, I'm only about 1/4 of the way through the game. I might do a design analysis of the tutorial level?
What would Fornite Fic even be about????
Fortnite is for all the brain-damaged man children in the world.
Hah! As an Apex Legends player, I don't have to worry about these silly psychologically driven monetization schemes! ***Notices the evolving Havoc rifle skin only available via Premium Battle Pass *and* Level 100*** *** Cries ***
20:34 good tabs
Nice video overall. It's true that kids are easily persuaded into an uncontrollable desire for flashy and ultimately meaningless trinkets. It might be something of a cultural epidemic. I remember wheedling my way into the purchase of a $20 shiny pokemon card when I was small. A holographic Wigglytuff-- call me spoiled, but similar scenarios abound. I don't recall the card providing me much satisfaction following the initial rush of need, however. I played a lot of video games when I was younger, and I do think they're a powerful medium with beautiful stories on offer despite some problematic implications regarding prolonged disembodiment. Fortnite, however, might not be an example of what good video games can do. I just hope that their time with Fortnite serves as a lesson to these kids, that purchasing vapid trinkets does not really fulfill the thirst for a good life. It may be a lesson best learned sooner than later, after all. What is a good life? Hard to say exactly, but I do wish for these Fortnite players that they'll eventually move on to something that allows them a bit more activation of the human potential for imagination, expression in physical form, emotional experience, etc. etc. As a disclaimer, I've never played Fortnite so essentially I'm just speaking from my own assumptions and a few points gleaned from the video.
I'm glad I don't generally like multiplayer games. Every part of this seems so predatory and despicable that I can't believe so many people are willing to buy into it. I know this sounds holier-than-thou, but I'd expect people to have more self-respect than this. They're being blatantly taken advantage of and they don't seem to care, or at least not enough to stop letting it happen to them. Although I guess it could be that most people are unaware of the things at play here, so to speak. I don't play this game at all so I wasn't aware of how they did their item shop, loot boxes, skins, etc. Sadly nothing reported in this video surprised me. I've passively watched friends play it and I have to say...I don't think the concept really clicks for me. Why would I want to put hours and hours into a game with no concrete signs of progression or rewards? You have level counters that you can raise, sure, but the gameplay is still essentially the same. Your weapons are still dependent on chance and where you drop, your health does not increase, and you still can't change your character model or emotes without paying. All that is to say, actually playing the game has no effect on how the game will feel to play in the future. That makes it seem pointless to me. And, on a personal-taste note, there's no story here. You could grasp at straws and argue that their is a LITTLE bit of story in Fortnite, but it's a moot point. Nothing NEW happens in the game unless there's a special event going on, but these events still have no reason for existing in the context of the game's world. They're just things that are solely designed to keep players playing and attract new ones. I don't like the idea of doing the same thing (or something similar to the same thing) over and over again. Especially in a game like this that only has one map. I like going to new areas, finding/doing new things, and being told a story with character development and connected plot points. Fortnite does none of these things. I'll stick with the heavy hitters like Assassin's Creed Odyssey, RDR2, and the GTA games.
I like your channel but I don't know how I feel about your Jordan Perterson support.
that montage went on just long enough to make me sweat a little
when all our minds are uploaded and our bodies are in the grip of the Tencent-Amazon behemoth, you will be made to pay for dancing
I sighed heavily at many points while watching this video. I've never played Fortnight and I vow to never do so. One year ago i quit The Elder Scrolls Online after many, MANY hours of playtime because I was just so fatigued and disgusted with how Zenimax was aggressively monetizing that game with many of the same practices that Fortnight uses, only with less obfuscation because TESO still is very much a game that, at least in the beginning, was meant to be a proper game and all these money-grabbing tricks were a later add-on and thus not so deeply woven into the game's essential character. The problem was, it was becoming impossible to play the game without feeling alienated (or excluded) by the monetization and its influence on the player community. It hadn't started like that with TESO--I got to see the game evolve into that and it was depressing AF. I dread a future where we can no longer play any game, MMOs, mobile. co-ops or even singleplayer--without this intrusion of monetization that forces us to spend our time and energy (and money) on it, whether giving into it or fighting it or something in between, rather than just being allowed to play the bleeping game.
If only I was apart of the one percent... Then I would be able to afford to gamble!!!
1:22 THANK YOU FOR TELLING ME WHAT THE HELL KIND OF GAME FORTNITE IS. I tried looking it up a while back and got literally 0 answers as to the genre and style of the game, only that it was popular.
"Because you can enjoy what the mother earth gave us but that is not the same as having a personality." Love it.
Looking at this video title made me think that this was going to be about press coverage and memes shaping the perception that Fortnite is a dumb kids game. It wasn't, but I sort of wish it was because damn is this grim.
epic games making a third person shooter game that heavily favourites shotguns....man oh man...what a surprise
im not trying to defend preying on children, but it's not hard to buy a battle pass once and use the vbucks from leveling it to buy the next one every season. but that's basically the only semi-good value proposition on the entire store.
You're slowly turning into Ross Scott here.
You didn't mention that you can buy the battle pass once, then if you hold on to most of the V-buck rewards you can use those to buy the next battle pass? Yes it still incentivizes you to play almost every day but if you're smart and aware of the tactics they use to get you to spend money you can spend surprisingly little while getting most of the cosmetics (from the battle pass at least, there are skins that are only in the item shop). And Marshmello claimed or at least implied that the audio component of the first "concert" they did (there were two on one day) was streamed live.
I would love to see you collaborate with Extra Credits... Because games/media matter ;)
"Look at that stupid default skin, I bet he just installed and has never played" "Look at that loser f2p in Team Fortress 2. I can't believe I'm playing with a bad teammate" "Look at all of these cool things you could get if you pre-ordered before the reviews about the game are out"
dan has poor taste in erotica confirmed
Fortnite is just one of the most agressive. See TF2, where if you don't spend cash, you are denied not only of the full experience, of also of any meaningful progression. Furthermore, the game brands itself as a "war-themed hat simulator", and the jokes about cosmetics are constant. But how can you joke about hats if you don't have any?
I have this friend who talks about the way corporations are now pushing towards the construction of subjectivities by means of their services and the commodification of everyday interaction. Huh.
So let's be real for a second. Fortnite is a decent game with mostly solid mechanics and really good game feel. Almost all the dislike for it comes from a combination of "its overly popular" and it became over focused on the battle royal side and the seemingly abandoned save the world mode. In the end the hate I feel is either people joking or being dead serious. Kinda like how Call of duty was 10 years ago. So do I hate or like fortnite, no and no, I find it fun with my friends, but I personally wont play it on my own.
So, Fortnite wants to be Second Life + Misery
Local man gets mad at video game because he really wants skins 4 wins :(
This was informative! Would you ever talk about Wizard 101 or 101 series of games in general?
This argument has enough substance to include on my thesis. Smash the like, comment below and subscribe.
13:30 - Speaking from someone in the digital marketing ecosystem ... the terms "manufactured discontent"/"hostile design" are also known as "dark design". Look it up. I've employed it in testing. It works. It's why terms and conditions and EULA popups are massive, ungodly walls of text that numb your brain after the first sentence. It's why auto dealer ads on TV and radio have that high speed chatter listing all the legalese at the very end ("we're annoying, you can tune out now!") ... it's why sometimes, for some regions and income levels, some elements of a page may not load quickly. It's small annoyances and inconveniences that get people to do something without directly telling them to do it. And it's terrifying how effective it can be, and almost no one I know questions whether it's morally right or ethically right to be doing it.
This helped me understand this game on a whole other level, kudos.
Nobody noticed your tab game at 20:37. I am disappoint.
So. Fortnite is trying to be 00s Second Life now? All those glam collaborations will surely lead to kid millionaires and weird scandals. Internet been there and done that but never as viciously marketed at kids (who used to be targeted with cartoons and ads before). What got me a bit gobsmacked is that shop UI as am veeery certain it was stolen along with whole battle pass and challenge structure. Yep, all games use similar but I seen that specific design and it was by a company I applied for a position ages ago and not associated with any of those. Modern gaming. Eh.
Now we know why Henry was so judgmental about Susan playing videogames! He didn't want her to blow the $680,000 on micro-transactions!
20:31
Stop waving at me with those dead eyes virtual Dan.
This sounds like Super C 8 bit nonsense
I don't have anything specific to say, I just wanted to add some extra 'engagement' on top of liking the video. 'Cos it's a very good video.
They had the skin I wanted on sale once and I wasn’t home to get it. I’ve never seen it again. I don’t even play the game anymore but I follow them on social media so I can see if it ever goes on sale again.
The media was right: Fortnite is the spawn of the Devil.
"Manufactured discontent" lol, the game is trash, sorry.
+Lossthief Totally true, but you still cant justify risking the house with the idea you can buy two tomorrow cause your on a hot streak.
On the flip side though, this actually makes lootboxes marginally more predatory - there's never a chance that the "House" has to pay out anything close to what it's gained. So it's many of the bells and whistles and psychological maneuvers of gambling, but with basically no risk for the people in charge because they money they get out of developing new skins/emotes/etc far outstrips the cost of designing them, and they never have to worry about running out of a digital product.
Maybe... though it did sell over a million copies before being translated to other languages. Eh, just one of those oversights I guess.
It was supposedly live. Besides what you mentioned, he (Marshmello) also confirmed it while playing Fortnite with a streamer. Who knows.
IMO, you should hold off until you make some more progress. The game does some very interesting stuff. Spoiler: it is HARD
I could smell the shit on Fortnite and have never touched it so I came into this video totally blind, and I feel like it was extremely informative and well made, great work
The tabs at 20:31 are just a masterpiece of blink-and-you'll-miss-it humor. Well done, Dan.
There was literally an ad for poker machines before this video... the irony
"Storefront with a game attached" this needs to become a term
the only battle royale i support is Super Animal Royale.
14:14 and we got the title boys
God her armpit for that waving animation is so stretched. It's honestly unsettling to me. Like, way more than the freaky wide dead eyes and unceasing smile that make it look like she's screaming inside. "And boy does Fortnite have hooks." Fortnite's got so many hooks, the hell dimension from Hellraiser seems tame by comparison!
okay before this i just desliked fortnite... now hate it
Yeah so I finally watched all the breadites' April fools videos, and this is the best one. Well done, you win. You are the king of fools.
You're forgetting one thing: it's a free game. It's entirely up to you whether you buy the battle pass or skins. It's defiantly not a store front first. Most people check it when they first boot into the game and don't buy anything. I know many people who have put 100s of hours into this game and have never spent more than $30 on a few battle passes. In a world where there's day 1 DLC, microtransactions in single-player games, unfinished games coming out at full price, I think Fortnite has done a good thing. The reality of Fortnite is much different from what you have shown here. You showed some really bad goofy game play that is not representative of a common match. You cherry picked all potential negative aspects of the game and blew them out of proportion without highlighting or contrasting the deep game play mechanics or skill this game requires. In my opinion, you basically took the easy route knowing the adult audience that will see this, and not putting out an all-encompassing video essay, you simply catered to the “Fortnite BAD, kids dumb” audience. All in all I think this is a very pessimistic paranoid view of the game.
Dude you're such a default bro Sorry, that's what my son says all the time. I will be digesting this
Oof
I've almost never played fortnite, so I didn't realize any of this. I guess the incentives of paying in to the game are easily avoided for most older people. You're right in saying that it's mostly targeting young kids.
Does this video legitamize referencing Chomsky in the title?
in the year 2015 AD game developers learned how to farm adolescents for their parents credit cards.
I actually skipped put on this at first because I just assumed it was a lame April fools joke, but it's legitimately fantastic... hopefully I'm in the minority here, H.Bomberguy kinda ruined all April 1st releases for me lol
“... just as early industrial capitalism moved the focus of existence from being to having, post-industrial culture has moved that focus from having to appearing.” ― Guy Debord, The Society of the Spectacle
Oh so sad. You've got killed so many times. But there's hope. BUY NOW! Unlimited lives pack for only 9.999.999,- $ !
scathing takedown of this cesspit
I played a few matches a while back, was never tempted to do anything other than play the battle royale game with the default/random skin. I wasn't invested in it though because I'm always terrible at competitive games and knew i wouldn't be staying long
Kind of felt like you were building up to "so here's how we stop that future" bit, but then it ended and I'm sad. I guess I'll just play Halo Reach on PC and pretend it's forever those halcyon days at the beginning of this decade.
The only thing that will stop that future at this point is a giant meteor
After watching this, I realize there are some sad, sad, saaaaaad people out there. What they'll do just to "fit in."
I am fully aware of Fortnite's shady dealings and such but I'm strugging to think of ANY games that aren't exactly like it. Even Dead by Daylight added a staggered ingame money system, similar to the one Microsoft made for Xbox live's currency back on the 360. Paladins, Quake Champions. Every shooter now has battle passes and many have lootboxes. (Which surprisingly Fortnite DOESN'T have) I just... I just want to go back to Timesplitters... But I don't think game makers are going to say, "let's make less money and have less players!" It makes me very sad but what choice do we, the players, have? Games are so broken now...
This is just plain excellent.
Brooooo this was amazing, best April Fool's Day vid but also you did a great job breaking down this concept that I've been noticing for a while but didn't have words for!
The other open tabs at 20:31 :D
Man I hate Dan
thanks for sharing this stunning insight my dude
I mean one battlepass is only like 10 dollars and comes with enough vbucks to buy the next one, so you essentially only have to spend ten dollars to get every battlepass and every perk that comes with it. Pretty good value.
That was a pretty good in depth video about the monetization of Fortnite, though it is pretty funny thinking about how the article writer says the Marshmello concert is bizarre and exciting when Phantasy Star Online 2 has done the live concert thing before with Hatsune Miku with 3d model performances in the hub areas. Just of course not known becuz not localized.....
So, Fortnight is what you would expect if an economist and an underground casino mobter teamed up to create something truly evil.
you lost me when you explained what fortnite is... people knooow, everybody on the internet knows
From the first moment I saw fortnite get big I've said it isn't even a videogame lol.
Battle Royale is a book that was adapted into a movie.
+Gnome de Plume Go read it, you're missing out.
No one cares because no one has read it
Song during the montage?
W e l i v e i n a s o c i e t y
Two years ago I had a 28-year-old roommate who spent around 18 hours every day playing nothing but Fortnite right outside my room until 4:30am. EVERY. SINGLE. DAY. She rarely showered because she was always playing this goddamn game. You know—something a very normal, functional, adult human being to do.
+Gnome de Plume yikes, you couldn't be more wrong. but thanks for playing!
Local man does not watch video
“...Gachapon toys...” “...Gachapon...” “...Gacha...” //has flashback to that video of a guy spending 1000usd on Apple gift cards for Love Live! SIF and not getting his best girl after so many rolls//
Informative.
I think you're wrong about the game itself only just being good enough and relying on hooks. I played it for a year without spending a cent because the gameplay is incredibly polished and fun
It's fucked up how a game can be more of a monetization scheme than a game.
14:09 is me debating and giving the model at 7:26
I realize this is an April Fools joke but that doesn't mean factual inaccuracies should be ignored. The reason that Epic felt so comfortable using the "Battle Royal" genre in their Fortnite game is because despite their partnership with PUBG, Player Unknown did not, in any way, come up with the idea for the Battle Royale game type and it was not inspired by the Battle Royale movie. It's been around for years and years. Look at any Minecraft multiplayer server and you will see games similar to the Battle Royale genre that have been around almost as long as Minecraft has and I've got news for you, none of them invented the Battle Royale genre either. It's been around a long, long time.
For one, thank you for clarifying that I really don't want to try or _get near_ fortnite. I have a couple of thoughts about this. Antagonistic game design, which yes, became evident during the early free-to-play (F2P) launches of mobile games earlier this decade has been a worrying development. It makes me think of how service contracts replaced long warranties of household appliances: The warranty was originally an expression of confidence by the manufacturer that their product would work for a minimum lifetime, but as that became normal for such products, companies quietly rolled back their warranties to a minimum term (six months or a year) and instead resellers offered a service contract, usually one provided by a third party. But what they were also saying is they no longer hold that confidence in their product, or care to translate it into action. So it is with games. The microtransactions and DLCs (and the antagonistic game design which, yes, manufactures frustration and disappointment if only the base game is owned) indicates the publisher has no confidence in the product it is selling. So rather than try to sell a game that is good, fun and complete, instead it is selling a device to manipulate consumers into paying more money for it, even if that leaves much of its audience embittered. It's also an indication of bad faith. To be fair, in an economy that loathes regulation and accepts as normal that companies will try to circumvent the letter of regulations while violating them in spirit, this is not particular to home appliances or game software, but most terms-of-service for most corporation-to-customer relationships are unbalanced in the favor of the company, with verbose and obfuscatory language. This is the normal of the cyberpunk dystopia we live in. I suppose there is a way to play a game such as Fortnite, which is to regard the game itself and the company that supports it as antagonistic, thus to hack the game, not simply to beat matches, but to get the game to unintentionally disseminate locked content to its playing public. Of course, this can get someone in trouble, possibly even prison for disrupting a company's business model, but it would also bring the conversation to the courts of whether or not a business model that is antagonistic to its customers should be allowed in the first place (outside of Paradise, Nevada).
ok
Wow, the way you present this makes it so much worse of a time and money sink than I thought it was. It's a trap. The way "live services" are going is incredably exploitave and gross that I hope some regulations come down the pipe to regulate "virtual currencies that can be bought with money" so that they must be exchangable back into money, and thus making all of these games gambling and essentially illegal under US law.
Awesome video, I think all parents should see this Video.
It is technically called "Coercive Monetization" and is the most common sinister strategy for F2P game-as-service companies. Even connected with tournaments which involve games designed around lots of randomness factors to increase stickiness of average players to basically give them hope that they could earn real-money from it. They call it "e-sports". I prefer to call it "disguised gambling".
5:20 top left use code chap in the item shop
First time seeing your channel. I would love to see you do a breakdown on EVE Online's economy and PLEX, the real-money-to-virtual-currency commodity you can buy from a microtransaction store. Out of all the games I've played that feature some kind of microtransaction cash shop, I've always felt that EVE Online has done it the best out of all of them and I would love to hear your opinion on it. I want to know if I'm just a victim to clever marketing. Also, on the subject of FOMO, are there any studies that show how effective it actually is? FOMO is something that turns me off from a sale entirely. In the real world there are examples of FOMO everywhere (timed sales/holiday discounts, etc) but these are very different from things simply no longer being for sale after X amount of time. When I see things like that anywhere I just lose any and all interest in even buying whatever that thing is. I'm curious to know if anyone has conducted studies to determine how effective or ineffective FOMO is.
+Gnome de Plume Well, at least it would be better than Fortnite.
That would involve playing EVE Why would you ask that of anyone
Don't think I didn't see those tabs you had open ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)
So where does a game like Destiny 2 fall in this "storefront with a game attached" discussion? It is still considered to fit the games as a service model, but there's a lot more game attached, and the cosmetics store is comparably limited alongside Fortnight's offerings.
Really great video. Haven't seen any of your stuff before & I'm already hooked! Instant sub
So marshmallows concert isnt the same as say the ones in second life or voltaire's in adventure quest
Wow fucking great
Great video, but I think the gameplay section was a bit out of place in the discussion
You went and made an insightful Fortnite video, but never made one on Nier: Automata. I'd presume the latter has more material to work with. Well, considering that the moment has long gone, it probably doesn't matter. I'm just hoping that the original Nier and Drakengard 3 haven't landed on your stack of shame, because odds are, the point would be lost.
Marshmelo said that the vocals were live though, it wasn't totally pre-recorded
What deodorant do you think she uses?
Based on the title of this video I thought it was gonna be about the bandwagon of people shitting on Fortnite, especially if they played the game religiously before
You got it wrong the animations were pre-done marshmellows audio was live. Not great fact checking guy.
Clearly the most important thing to take away from this kk
"We will help you if you let us buy 40% of your company" why yes that doesnt sound suspicious at all
Holy shit I just found my new favorite channel
"...the ability to self-express is placed at a premium." This phrase gave me chills, and not good ones
Great, GREAT video!
Thank you for this. Damn, I’ve been gaming since the Atari 2600; I can’t even imagine being introduced to gaming with all this psychological shit attached. Uggggghhhhhhhhh.
WOW
wooow im such a sheep!
And here I never played Fortnite just because the gameplay looks awful and the actual mechanics of it as a shooting game are basically "babby's first shooter but it costs way more". Good to know that Tencent ruined this one too, I guess. It's gotten so bad that as soon as I hear "Tencent" is involved with something I know to avoid it.
How DARE you trick me into watching a Fortnight video
God the animation for the waving emote looks so bad
Anyone else getting black mirror: 15 million merits vibes from all of this?
And here I thought it was Linkara's thing to turn into Jim Sterling for April fools
Even though I play the game on a regular basis, I found the critique very insightful. Fortnite is the ultimate beast in terms of microtransaction*FOMO game. While being totally aware of the "trap", I still spent money on virtual cosmetics, battle pass, etc.
This is spot on. Pretty sick how these corporations are manipulating children in the guise of "Free 2 Play" games. Lage stage capitalism at its finest.
Marshmello is a sellout. Fortnite sucks.
Just wanna say I noticed you edited the "Oh Shi-" of the players from both perspectives & I applaud that attention to continuity
I mean...if you don't like it then you're not compelled to play. What is the big deal?
Remember timesplitters? The PS2 shooter with a similar art style to fortnight that also had dozens of wacky skins? Skins that could be unlocked by simply doing fun challenges inside the single player game? Good times.
Okay, I don't play Fortnite so I'd love to hear an answer. In a lot of MMOs where, say class is gender locked, I see that both male and female players will complain, but more male players complain about having to play female characters. (Even if they're conventionally sexy, but especially if they're muscular or cute.) According to the stats male players account for about 73% of Fortnite's user base. What's the ratio of randomly generated male characters to female characters in the free to play? Are you obliged to state your gender when you make an account, and if so, does that alter the ratio? I generally think that an even ratio is a good thing, but if it's even, or perhaps even biased more than 50% female, I wonder how that affects the pressure to buy skins when 73% of the user base is male?
Good on you for thanking the bus driver!
ob fyuu scation
its a video game
sure , but can you double ramp ?
In short: "Oh no I don't have the shiny stuff like the players that paid more" Too bad that real life is pretty much the same. Instead of it being the new expensive shoes it's the new Fortnite skin, cry me a river.
Thats why i play Splatoon Lmao
It's a free game! Are they not allowed to advertise things that cost money within the game? I've played tonnes of Fortnite BR and have not spent more than $25 on Vbucks - I could've paid nothing if I wanted to and still be as successful at the game. If you're shrewd you can buy one battle pass and get every single battle pass thereafter by never spending an extra dime. If people are smart they won't be bled dry by the system. I mean, even Battle Pass Season 8 was available as free. Your shallow critique of the core BR game is largely unfounded and would be bold to deem as confident, I would deem it as brash. Fortnite is probably the most advanced BR game on the market. There's no other BR that has skill-based match making but FN does actually have it (namely 'Arena'). Furthermore the building mechanics are an unprecedented element in a shooter that expands skill ceilings beyond any other BR; surely this is good for peoples' brains in that they have to think more and work harder whilst playing to be successful. Lastly, the midrange 100% exists in fortnite; there are muskets, AKs, M16s, D.Eagles, and hunting rifles, all with different attributes, that if used well, can raze opponents at mid-range. I do think a lot of your criticisms are valid towards the children's market, in that their mates might bully them if they don't have cool skins, but the same thing happens in school with clothes and toys and gadgets - it's part of the cruelty of life unfortunately. People who spend too much on this game have deeper issues than FN, and adults that get FOMO on skins in a game ALSO need to take a long look at their lives - surely it's essentially society you're criticising and not FN?
DE (Digital Extremes) literally made an entire mode mode in warframe that let's you control lighting, camera angle, etc. Just look at a video by triburos and you can see how he uses it to the fullest with the emotes and unique animations to convey what he's talking about. Also warframe is probably the best ftp game that exists considering they *REMOVED* a virtual pet randomizing lottery machine because they saw a guy use it too often among other things.
Oh, you mean Fortnite and other games as services are evil because they're gambling marketed at children? Fancy that.
Tbh its scary how much mobile games do this specially new thing, they give you lots of presents in first dozen of levels few epic monsters, unique summon currency and what not you feel THE POWER welp, its ilussion of power since to lvl up those super unique heroes you need super unique mats that drop far far into the game the game creates that need that you need to invest even more to move forward *you get the sip of power, you need to have more* attitude. I usually uninstal when i hit that wall
Gonna see waving fortnite woman in my nightmares thanks
People have done live concerts on second life for years
It's wasn't inspired by a 2000 Japanese horror film??? Never heard of the WWF? Come on; those where the Andre the Giant days... And it's not one game; it's dozens of modes some that have nothing to do with battle royale. There are team mode 50v50s ffs. Badly researched joke.
He didn't mention MineCraft Hunger games ;(
There are no lootboxes or any sort've gacha system, so I can't call the shop predatory.
Honestly, games like Fortnite made me realise that these games are made solely for your money. No matter how good of a player you may or may not be it doesn't matter. If you don't have the shiny new skin/emote/spray, you're seen as lesser. It doesn't help that playing the game over and over again gets tiring and repetitive after a while. There's only so much that can happen when you play a shooter game regardless of the amount of gimmicks implemented. It's one of the reasons why I stopped playing Overwatch and why I will never play Fortnite. It's the same shit with a different name and a new coat of paint.
Dammit! Now I’m depressed that I got tricked into spending over $80 on this game.
I play bcuz it's fun...
Isn't the battle pass a "pay once and if you keep playing you will have all future battle passes for free" kind of deal? You spend an entire video giving the negative sides of the monetization model of fortnite attention, but you don't mention this. I might be wrong as I haven't played the game for very long now, but back when I played I had all the battle passes I ever wanted by paying for only the first one. Vbucks are a reward in the battle pass, and they reward enough to give the next one for free.
Thank you for the most honest fortnite video to date
Eye opening! I like it!
Remember when fortnite was supposed to ONLY be a tower defense game?
This is the world we've been heading into for some time now and i for one think it sounds absolutely horrible.
I'm not trying to defend fortnite, but they did give out a free premium battle pass, and there are vbuck rewards in the free pass
The handwave bit gets sillier every time you cut back to you talking. It also makes your point about how Fortnite is not so great as a Platform unless you happen to be in tight with the programmers to create the custom asset(s) for you.
tldr; using peer pressure, puberty insecurities and the cool kids club mentality to make middle/high school kids buy stuff to feel like they are in the VIP section of a club. epic/tencent knew their target audience.
This video: Tencent was involved Epic CEO just a couple days ago: People need to step up and quell these lies that tencent is anything more than an investor! like go out and tell people they're wrong for daring to point it out, guys!
So glad i found your "channel" dude youre a fucking genius
The first thing I saw was the episode title, and I was like "huh, I wonder if that Youtuber could truly be aware of Noam Chomsky's book that, that title is clearly referencing." And then I saw it was Folding Ideas, and I'm like "oh, yeah that makes sense now."
This is why corporations and companies must be abolished, and the things needed to produce games handed down to the developers and workers.
God i hate this so much
Marshmellos voice was ACTUALLY LIVE. Edit: I know that’s not the point of the video but still.
Incredible Video, I am speechless. rarely is content on youtube this well thought out and intelligent
Love your video, but dude - please give DOTA 2 a try. As soon as you open the main menu you'll feel the difference in the magnitude of psychological warfare being waged against your wallet and free time.
Very well spoken and thought out piece. As an adult whos probably invested no more than $50 into fortnite over a span of a year, I definitely see how younger kids are really impressionable and value skins akin to something like new clothes. The "rarer" the skin is, the more prestige the user has, and when that skin is released again, a clear uproar from the community but there are way more people who buy into the hype and end up buying the said skin. Speaking strictly about the store, what frustrates me the most is there doesn't seem to be any discernible pattern when it comes to what rotates in and out. I wanted to buy a specific emote, and while checking in every single day for over two months, I saw several ones get repeated which was really irritating. I can't imagine someone younger who's holding onto their vbucks have the fortitude to wait it out, so they'll just settle for whatever else, only to see the item they REALLY wanted the next day, only to pull out mom and dad's credit card... again.
So YouTube recommended this video to me a week after the fact. Never heard of this channel before so I didn't know what I was watching and almost clicked away before I realized it was an April Fool's joke and I wasn't seeing some guy converting his channel into Fortnite. Great video btw. Grim too. I'm gonna have to stick around the channel for a while.
this is so well done, what a great piece
As a player myself, I can tell you most of the community makes fun of those who haven't bought in, and assume they have lesser skill. 'Default' is a common insult amongst players.
I miss when kids played Minecraft Java Edition, which was about exploration and creativity, made customization free and even made it easy to make your own skins in MS Paint, had NO microtransactions, 1 time purchase download version, and used to even have a free browser version :/
(actually the voice in the concert was live)
The concert was actually live. The music was scripted, but Marshmello was actually speaking into a microphone that went live to the servers. That is what made it a semi-legitimate concert.
Source?
Gun fire and explosions always make concerts more interesting and exciting. However, more interesting and exciting is not always "better". For example, the last thing you want is an exciting airline flight. Boring airline flights are always best.
Great video with very solid breakdowns on how Fortnite functions as a live service, properly highlighting how predatory some of these systems are. However I do think there was an important point you missed regarding the Battle Pass that Fortnite deserves some credit for. Throughout the season, if you a paid player, you will actually earn enough Vbucks to be able to buy the Battle Pass for the next season.
.....so what’s your creator code?
fortnite and epic in general is just a data collection tool for tencent i am NOT okay with that, no matter what the fuck will the chinese do with my data later
20:30 those are some weird tabs man
hmm.. I feel all those digital phycological manipulation is good topic for another episode of Black mirror. Looks terrifying enough.
I know for a fact that people are labelling Fortnite as the best free to play game to ever exist, and i know for a fact that some of these people say "this is the best thing ever" as soon as something else comes out. For them to not have added any type of free to play expression at this point is mind boggling. Even in the most basic korean free to play fps you can at the very least buy some goggles and gloves for your character. Apex Legends, while offering gambling like boxes, do give you a box every couple of levels, meaning you have a shot at getting the thing you want just from playing, plus you get crafting materials meaning you can then eventually craft the thing you want. Team Fortress 2 rewards new players with a hat for performing well against an opponent, and this has created the awful new player stereotype that's always fun to bump into. Fortnite? No, pay us in order to put goggles on!
Man do I feel good to never playing fortnite.
Fortnite is the perfect showcase of what is actually wrong with the gaming industry. The answer isn't "SJW's pushing a PC agenda", the answer is game design choices that are driven by squeezing every last ounce of profit they can from the customer without regard to whether the game is actually good or interesting from a narrative or gameplay standpoint. Microtransactions, loot crates, early access it's all a result of late capitalism. Video games were better when they were less profitable, yet supposedly the profit motive leads to quality? Sounds like a paradox almost lol
Well, tecnicly you need to buy only one battle pass, than you will get a little more v-buks than needed to buy next one by unlocking battle pass tiers. (if you will not spend it on anything else) And you do not need to play alot for that. I play Fortnite BR one hour a day max. It is important to do a dailys and weeklies challenges, not to play alot. Usualy by the 8-9 week I have 100 battle pass tier. And do not forget, that you can earn v-bucks in pve "Save the world" mode - 50vb per day. But, yes, "Save the World" is not free either. (And at the end of last season they even gave everyone who completed special free challenges free battle pass for current season.)
As much as I love Fortnite (both Save the World, and Battle Royale), their business model is really hostile. To add onto your point about not being able to choose your appearance without paying, the community has this stigma against players without skins. They're seen as dumb and useless, peer pressuring new players into spending money just to appear better to other players. Furthermore, if you pay for the Battle Pass, you get roughly 1500 V-Bucks each season, enough to buy the Battle Pass next season and maybe one or two items. However, there are many items that cost more than 500 V-Bucks, so if there's an item that you *must* have, then you sacrifice getting the next season's Battle Pass for free. Finally, the item shop receives new items each 2 weeks, resulting in people spending their V-Bucks, only for another item they didn't know they needed coming out the next day (luckily, data-miners have made this less of a problem as we can see what items will be coming.) I fear that with Fortnite's popularity, many games will follow in their footsteps, requiring players to spend more and more money just to get something that they probably should've received in a one-off purchase. If you really want to play Fortnite but only want a one-time purchase, wait until Save the World goes on sale. Save the World is a blast with friends and, because it was made before the BR was released, you can get 50 V-Bucks each day for completing daily challenges and even more for completing certain missions. I've been doing it and I've been able to gain roughly 2,000 over the course of a month, perfect for people who only purchase things that they are sure of.
SOURCES???
5:46 the concert was actually live, Marshmello said that he was actually talking. Prior to the concert people could hear him testing the mic when you were in Pleasant Park. I don't know about the encore though since it was meant for people on the other side of the world. *edit* i guess i should put some sources live mic: https://youtu.be/7QfSxSFqJGE an article that references the fact it was live: https://www.theverge.com/2019/2/2/18208223/fortnite-epic-games-marshmello-concert-exciting-bizarre-future-music i mean you could just google it too.
That waving animation is making me uncomfortable
That animation really was not supposed to be looped xD
Great video, and you've definitely slowed me down buying skins, but still, you just kind of talked about a part of the game that isn't the actual game. Every free to play game has to have some big money source for cosmetics, so it was necessary.
Chap’s SAC code at 5:15. lmfao what a troll. les go team liquid
the constant waving gave me a headache >~< worth it, but yknow..
its true , i never liked the hostility of the game towards the player in the way they handle the free player module. the only, ONLY, reason why i put 5 bucks into this game is because i couldnt stand how it wouldnt let me choose a preset skin and it changed after every match
I keep thinking about this video. Really excellent.
ayy fuck fornite
They need to fix the mats in Fortnite so they aren't instant Shields and can be thrown up so quick. Like you said midgame is non-existent.
the voice of marshmello was live
marshmello said i was all live in an interview :/
Well they’re losing some steam with their last update that has the community salty
Now I want Noam Chomsky to stream on twitch
Wow. I finally understand what irked me while playing Fortnite. I still remember downloading this hip and hot new game that looks cool, while it was still S1 and the fandom was growing, and being visibly annoyed. I didn't understand the bullet mechanic, the physics, the building system was new, the game itself had a unique art style but was sorely....bland and lacking. And then I saw the store. I have like 13 matches and wasn't great, but personal performance (and nEtWOrK iSsuES iN 3rD wOrlD) aside, the game was a new kind of F/TPS Shooter that just didn't sit with me. If we're talking about how Content Distribution, Unlocking Content and the likes should work, what I consider the best in that regard is BF3, BF4 and BF1 (Not the Skins system in BF1 tho...) I mean, sure BF4 capitalises on buying DLCs and Currency for new content and skins, but it'd always take "buy maps and unlock weapons by playing" over "Free maps but pay for cosmetics using Premium Currency" Infact, and though I hate it, I'd rather fucking get a gun by shooting a plane down using my LMG to unlock a new one than use 10$ to buy a cosmetic item. Not because I can't or don't wanna spend money (I mean, I don't but still) but because I'd rather it require dedication and skill in doing something specific and innovative than to just play around in the same redundant manner to level up a Battle Pass bullshit and get meh and uninteresting rewards unless I pay real money, and then play even harder like a fucking retard to make sure I redeem that money through having stuff on a virtual platform just to flaunt it off to people I do not know in-game, to get some strange sense of superiority, satisfaction, relevance and validation because I paid bucks for it. Give me an assignment to kill 100 guys in-game with a shovel to unlock a new weapon, and I will most likely do it because everyone else will remember that boy that shit was tough, don't make it so that we have to buy it through some currency. Well, let bygones be bygones, let them play the cool and trendy new BR games until they get bored of it. I'll be here shooting Muromets with a Chauchat.
marshmallow is shit. i still have stacks of vinyl records. records that actually need to be synced by HAND and EARS!
So what do i do? Fortnite and apex run the same business model and i really don't have anything else to play but don't want to support any of these business practices? Also with nintendo they have you pay a service that restricts online play on big first party games?? So what do i do play a free game that uses a terrible practice or play a game that restricts online connectivity?
i thought the video was going to be about something totally different, so i was a bit confused at first. i think that this is quite disingenuous, calling gameplay mechanics gimmicks, focusing on the "social space" when the core experience is gameplay. I understand that live service games are manipulative shit shows but the reason so many people play this game is because we have fun doing it. i think perhaps you started this video biased, with an idea or agenda in your head and fed into that.
When he spoke over the mic, it was 100% live, confirmed by EPIC, and confirmed by a couple of servers not getting it. In terms of music, i mean, unless its LIVE BAND, everything is pre-recorded lol.
Marshmello did speak live however besides marshmello's lines everything was scripted.
Phantasy Star Online 2 has been doing the in game concert thing for literally years, with both in universe characters and real people, and I doubt it's the only one. The Fortnite DJ thing was the most pathetic version of it I've ever seen.
This is really insightful.
Ah, this makes so much sense now, Epic was gutted almost immediately after its success. It's no longer Epic, it's Chinese investors with the label Epic.
You're countering an argument I didn't make.
Stunfisk Fr, that was the one that made me go >:O because shit, man! imagine that irl! I get clothing is paid for in the real world, but the dances? imagine if you wanted to do a fun dance, and someone makes you pay $5. And if you don’t have anymore money, than that’s it, you don’t get to do anything else. It’s extremely predatory.
but you get free skins
Thanks for making this video. I agree with a lot of the UI, psychological, and business oriented aspects. However, I have to heavily disagree when you start discussing the BR core gameplay around 10:25. The game has been around for 8 seasons now, I find it presumptuous to dismiss the play style outright after
Okay hoss I'm gonna have to say I dislike a few things. The first thing I dislike is how as soon as you bring up V-Bucks you start going on about gambling laws and the technicalities of said laws. Like, okay, why. You even address the fact that there *used* to be some loot boxes in STW, which now show you everything you get ahead of buying them. But alrighty I guess. Gotta make the video longer somehow. Next, the vehicles. It's not like you're playing Dead Rising or Mario Kart, you're playing a game that you benefit from changing the bindings to for your liking. Something a bit more like Diablo, or Overwatch, TF2 or even the other BRs, PUBG and H1Z1. I guess you could be in the right when it comes to playing the game for the first time, but honestly the controls are *pretty decent* (aside from the travesty which is the Baller, I don't think they ever fixed that. You have to do it yourself.) for all vehicles. The ATK was amazing, I loved the shopping cart. Both had different controls - but here's the thing. They're *completely* different vehicles. It's a bit like War Thunder. Imagine if you hopped in the fucking plane and complained it wasn't like the tank. That's basically the same as hopping in a plane and then being like, nope this isn't like the driftboard, fuck, I'm out. And the only other big gripe I have, which may not even be a gripe - Not *all* of the concert was pre-recorded. Marshmellow was either streaming, or doing some weird shit, live during each performance. Or at least that's what was said, maybe they lied and it was all pre-recordings. But each performance (morning and encore) were different in terms of what Marshmellow said. Fortnite and Epic aren't the best but goddamn I'm sick of people acting like Steam or an alternative is better. I'm willing to support whoever is willing to show change, and albeit Epic's change may be slow, as least it's there on the fucking shitty Trello. That's more than you can say about Valve, barely admitting that their card game is dying, while Epic is apologizing for things that they feel will truly hender them in the future and continue to stay silent and stoic about the things they believe they're in the right about. As least they can stick to their guns in a matter of typing. Sorry to rant but damn. I'm only 11 minutes in. And of course Lorenzo sued, who wouldn't? Why would you say that like you're offended? He thought he was entitled to money he thought he'd earned and he wasn't. Like, yikes. This whole video is a fucking bias piece.
Breh the list of "inspirations for BR games is kinda long, not just pubg and fortnut
The Aprl Fool's was Dan almost convincing me for a moment that him and Jim Sterling are the same person… Nice video, thanks.
It's amazing how a game like fortnite can be successful with a huge majority of it's player base being to young to even job much less a credit or debt card... Surprised the pedophiles haven't started targeting it
what about minecraft hunger games
Lol you could have used the lobby animations for talking. It shows pretty good lip movement.
LOL 1:00 He could have just gone into the lobby, and used the in game chat which has a built in mouth movement feature when you talk, right? I guess he wouldn't be in the "double digital" studio then so idk
Wow, this is vile. I thought the Japanese gacha games I played were bad but this is absolutely diabolic.
I just like it cause it seems like I'm chilling with my old friends all the time when really they're hundreds of miles away.
Recommend to me a week later. I thought it was something interesting to watch until I saw the dates
i mean, Second Life has done live performances for...ever.
This video is biased and completely trash. Let me help you to understand. The 1st thing you said about this game shows that you picked half the game to talk about. The you even know that fortnite has a full game called save the world where in this full game you are showered with more then enough vbucks to buy skins and battle passes. I have never spent 1 dollar on vbucks and I have had battle pass since season 3. Anybody can make anything look bad if they only look for things they dont like. 2nd it dont take forever to get to tier 100 to test this dumb theory me and a couple of my friends tried it last season it took us less then 3 hours and could have been done faster. How we got on once every 3 days to do the daily challenge that gave us 15 tiers we waited to the last week and done all the challenges that took us 1 hour and a half that gave us another 50 the extra xp that it gave us while doing that gave us another 10 also they had a special event like they always do that gave us another 30 tiers. That's over 100 in less then 3 hours of play. The entire season. This whole video is so 1 sided I thought I was watching a flat earth video. How can you focus on half of a game the paid half not even speaking on the half of the game that gives you all the free stuff. Its said when people make video like this because people that dont know hear stuff like this and believes it. You half earth people crack me up.
+Folding Ideas hahahahahaha this is still so wrong. So you like to sound smart and people fall for it because they know nothing about the game. Let me go ahead and stomp this trash you just posted. Now let's talk about the daily's since that the part you read and tried to correct me on. 1st You right you have have to log in to get daily's but not play the game. 2nd if your daily's mission is a long mission like last to top 12 you can replace it. But you fail to write that but it's cool though let me keep going. So when it replaced with something like get a kill with a pistol I load up drop on a pistol kill the first person I see and then kill my self. Sorry this takes no where near the 4 mins you speak of. (Which you would know this if you put some days on lol). 3rd you to help booster your argument and math on time you add in load time OMG really that's your come back load time. Ok sorry everyone I didnt add in my load time to get to a match. I was saying game playtime. But since your going to add in load time well why stop there we might as well add in the time it takes to cut on the playstation, xbox, PC, or whatever you play on too. REALLY COME ON. But seriously even if I add in the time that it takes for us to load in. And double that 3 hours to 6 hours out of 10 weeks that still not much time at all. Oh to even make it faster then that they now have it where your friends can do you challenges for you so a team of 4 can drop all do different things and knock out 4 challenges in one game. And not even a full game because they can just land in places finish the challenge and then kill themselves. So I appreciate you trying to come for me and taking the time out to read my comment but you where still so wrong. Also you didnt come for the best part of my argument. And that's the part about how you only talk about half the game the part of the game that you dont like. When there is a whole other game that gives you all the stuff you need for free. It's like me walking into a mall going to the Gucci store and make a video about the mall being to expensive even though the mall has a payless shoe store and a Ross department store right next to the Gucci store I just refuse to look at them. I can break down all the bull you said in that video and show how one sided it is. Even the part where you tried to talk about the building and skill gap. That all depends on how you play the game my daughter doesn't build dont like build she enjoys hiding sneaking up on people and making in to the end different people play the game differently. Also all that talk about the concert and how he was saying to this and that go back and watch the concert there where parts where they made you do dances even if you didnt have them. And guess what if you had added in that part where there is another side to the game that gives you free vbucks you can then go and by stuff like the marsh walk for FREE. I can keep going and going. But I will stop here. Go and do some more research before you make a hate video for views. You knew if you put fortnite in the name you would get views. P.S Boy you flat earth people are hell I swear.
Seriously, though, your story would require you to complete three dailies (which are only given per log in and not per day, so taking three days off gives you 1, not 3, which you would know if you took a day off) in approximately 3 minutes and 54 seconds. 70 day season, log in every 3 days, so that's 23 times during the season. 90 minutes (your claim of how much time you spent doing dailies) divided by 23 sessions is 3 minutes 54 seconds per session. Since it takes about two minutes just to get from joining the queue to landing on the ground that gives you, at best, two minutes of actual play time to complete all three dailies. Now, I may just be a scrub Default who isn't any good at building, but something tells me it's going to take you a bit longer than 2 minutes to place top 12 in Squads.
And then Jon Fortnite himself came to your house and gave you a high five!
I don't see anyone in the comments talking about this but Marshmello's concert wasn't scripted.... He performed that live in a studio at Epic Games and it was streamed to the in-game players in real-time. The gravity shift, lights, and all were scripted but Marshmello's voice, (and most likely the music), were performed live by the man himself. So yeah.... not pre-recorded. (One of many sources verifying this: https://twitter.com/marshmellomusic/status/1091806371849203712 )
i saw the thanos add at 2:32 and just could not focus on anything else for the whole video
Behold, Meta-Studio
Can't imagine paying money for a cosmetic
nice tabs at 20:38
Not only does it suck to play for free, but it sucks to have to stay premium every season because once you already spent the money its a waste of your previous purchase to not buy or earn the next one :/
I may have missed you touching on this, but if you buy the save the world game, you earn Vbucks through there that you can use in Battle Royale. Also, if you don't buy many items in the shop, you make enough V-Bucks in the battle pass to buy the next month's pass. I've spent maybe $60 total (Save the World + Season 2 Battle Pass) since release and have tons of cosmetic stuff.
You got a "keep it mello" emote for free by doing free challenges around the time of the concert, for what it's worth, though the Marsh Walk was in the item shop to be fair. Also Marshmello seemed to confirm he mixed live, though the animations and lots of the ambient sounds like the crowd and fireworks were added to the server beforehand.
I like Fortnite and play it a lot with friends, but I can appreciate when someone actually takes the time to critique Fortnite instead of just saying it sucks and having a clickbait title to get views
Holy shit, an April Fool's vid that actually funny and worth watching!
Actually making me feel like a tool for buying into Fortnite despite having a highly disposable income and not really caring where it goes. Well done.
FACINATING STUFF. Join us next time on, "Through the Spooky Door"
Ive always used the same word to describe Fortnite and similar monetization systems Predatory I miss grassroots gaming where the playerbase wasnt just a piece of meat being constantly tenderized and prepared
I've literally never played fortnite before, so i didnt know a lot about how the store and the progression works. Locking weekly challenges behind a paywall is just gross. I cant believe more people dont talk about this.
I feel like not mentioning that purchasing a battle pass once earns you enough V Bucks to purchase the next season. So someone with trigger discipline could pay just the 10 bucks and never pay again. The shop and the urge to purchase skins usually overtakes the desire to save. Skins are absurdly expensive, and there is no SBMM so a player that may want to play at this point in time will quit. Though I do like how willing they are to take player feedback into account and make changes. I've seen the game evolve since season 1 and it's a completely new experience now. I enjoy the game, and I do think the way its marketed is somewhat predatory and should be toned down. But I don't think it's going to be the downfall of much of anything.
Not mentioning was a disservice to your argument*
lmao are they trying to turn fortnite into 2nd life
Wow not even Roblox stoops this low
In trying to sync your voice to the characters movements, it came to a point where she would look in a different direction with every word on time. Slightly disturbing, but curious to watch.
7:21 why is the underside of her arm so red?
I’ve definitely fallen for the item shop FOMO more than I’d like
when people criticize a game they barely play
i just play it for the gameplay nothing else
At least in CS:GO I know how much money I'm wasting when I buy virtual items lol. And the prices of skins are decided by the players rather than a company.
You got me so deep into it, I didn't even know it was a april fools joke!
I've been an epic games guy since unreal, but didn't get where fortnite came from. Cliff leaving makes the whole thing make a lot of sense.
This is a non issue and a pretty pointless critique. Here's the bottom line: No game is truly free and if Games don't make money then there is no game to play. I'm not trying to be mean but if this video made someone think, then you were never thinking.
That is true, but it is interesting to analyse games
Also, if you want companies to change their policies, don't buy their content. Which will either- A: force them to change to something that works for both them and their customers B: Cause them to shut down entirely
this is the trashiest thing ever
The audio you heard of marshmallow talking was indeed live, not prerecorded.
Very good video, love this channel and what you do
Fortnite is not just about battle royal!!! There are many aspects you should cover other than BR. See creative and Save the world :)
You should’ve mentioned Weezer’s advertising campaign
geezus do u even own your testicles anymore?
i really liked this video. i catalog many of these microtransaction tricks in my head but you explained them all in a video and tied them all together. i've never seen it explained so black and white, i think many tip toe around these ideas. i think every parent or even adult fortnite player should watch this video with the player even if they understand some of these concepts. i think your video did a great job at tieing everything together and seeing it as a bigger picture. whether they continue to play is up to the player and their provisions but this at least informs them and warns them of the dangers of playing this game. thank you for making this. i really enjoyed watching it and have shared it with others.
I feel like as the years go by, my view of vaporwave has transitioned from that of it being a light-hearted parody of consumerism to an ever more accurate caricature of the new virtual-capitalist hellscape. However, the dream-like visions of sparkling clean malls and nostalgic, artificially uplifting vibes of vaporwave have been replaced by the harsh, mind gouging noise of manic transaction-baiting. To think that this game is played mostly by young kids is fucking terrifying. It’s evil.
Did Jordan Peterson convince you to wear that shirt?
I cannot believe you doxxed Marshmello
I mean, club penguin did it first. Candance :-0
I thought this was a Chomsky's video at the start xD
I've never been interested in trying out the game, it just doesn't check any of my boxes, but.... Holy fuck it looks bad. I'm not talking gameplay or macrotransactions, I mean it actually has ugly design.
like when ralph showed up from wreck it ralph
10/10 Like Second Life with guns.
My mom asked me what fortnite was and I showed her this video
the free one ends at level 60 is because it is impossible to level up that much without xp boosts
he was actually speaking live
How could I not subscribe after such a true and honest video. It's refreshing to hear the truth about that game rather than deal with the idiots who defend him and sweeny. Sweeny is a horrible person and the zuckerburg of video games.
1:45 incorrect pubg was clearly inspired by minecraft hunger games
Fortnite is just battle royale Maplestory
I regret buying a skin so much
The waving triggered me.
Can't say it's a mirror to the future, if it's a representation of our culture's present.
Battle pass was free this season......
That's huh I was expecting a "stop saying you hate fortnite because of kids" video before seeing the upload date, then I don't know what exactly I expected but it sure wasn't this. Really interesting video
Wow, kind of terrifying to see all of the thought that goes into these things.
The one thing you overlooked was that you don't need to keep buying battle passes , after the first initial 9.99$ for a battle pass u then earn that 950 vbucks and some for reaching tier 97 making ur next pass already paid for . I haven't spent any real cash since my first purchase , Good video tho
The only manufactured discontent I know is with bfv
good video i like
At around 7:18 you talked about "retaining all the perks" of having the battle pass and having to "buy all 4-5 season passes". It's been a few months since I played Fortnite, but back then you were able to retain you battle pass, season to season, if you just held onto your v-bucks from just one set of season rewards. I think you had to get to around level 60-70, but I saw it as a fair price for players who enjoyed the game enough to want a system to reward them for their play. Not trying to defend Fortnite, it's still dangerous for kids and adults who don't understand the sorts of marketing strategies Epic Games is implementing and can't provide their own mental safeguards. However, I do see their free-to-play model as very "fair" in terms of allowing everyone access to the same game, but at the same time, the game is clearly marketed towards a younger audience that would easily fall prey to FOMO and impulsive spending.
Phantasy star online 2 also have live Miku concert few years ago
I subbed after watching this. Very well made my friend
Him: so if you break down the neurological essence of the free track and the paid track you can derive that the paid track activates dopaminergic actions in your central cortex triggering your desire to etc etc etc Everyone else: 10 bucks for some more shit? Eh what ever, sure.
Marshemello's music is garbage.
I started and stopped playing after a few months in season 3 and 4 due to the building mechanics being abused by players who got too good and after I realised i could not complete the max rank of a battle pass despite finishing every quest. I would have needed to no life the game which is something I do not have the time or interest to do. Can't keep up with the constant updates or the 9 year olds who can play 247.
Is their a way that this could be done right and not like a scam
minty OwO no your right it’s a little scammy and completely up to the player but he really put it in perspective because I’ve fallen into these traps and I didn’t know I was even doing it I bought a skin because I didn’t want to not be able to have it like he makes me feel so stupid for buying into their whole marketing skeem
I really don't see how it's a scam. 1. Epic is pretty upfront about everything. The items and their prices are clearly listed and you directly buy the item you want. You're not paying money to "roll" like in something like Overwatch, it's all up to you. 2. All the cash shop items are purely cosmetic and provide no significant competitive advantage. (Well, you could argue the pitch black skins are hard to see, but yeah) 3. I don't see why free players are entitled to skins from the get go. He has a point about vbucks hiding the true pricing of items though. That's a bit scammy.
I posted this on the Fortnite Save the World sub, and the mods removed it claiming it does not relate to StW... but the FOMO practices of Epic are in that game mode, too. So it does relate to FN as a whole, but aparently, intelligently crafted critical content is not something most Fortnite players appreciate. Also, the StW subreddit is in the back pocket of Epic, i believe.
happy at least CliffyB decided that Epic had gone too far. these fuckers made Unreal Tournament.
Can you make a video about the genius design Titanfall gameplay
Saying that microtransactions are "cosmetic only and offer no competitive advantage." Are completely ignoring the psychological impact paid skins have.
Most likely the Vast majority of this was Unintentional. While certain choices in Games are pre-defined as some one who actually makes games (Programmer). Large amounts of Systems might appear to be purposefully designed but in actuality certain Systems that are have a effect of such a thing was simply a By-Product that no one intended to occur. As an example a Game called "Paintball" has an extreme level of Depth to it as you have 3 Water Bottle you can use such water bottles to heal yourself, or if someone dies revive them. This leads to massive layer of depth to reviving the best players and reviving them without dyeing or to not revive them. It also makes people not leave immediately as they can be revied. This was completely unintentional from the creator, it was simply a matter of "Players need a way to heal themselves so that games are not slow, and a way to revive people so that you don't stand for that long.". The actual depth of the Systems where unintentional.
+Folding Ideas Tencent does not have control over Epic. Tencent does not have any influence over the design choices of Epic. The statement "Tencent has spent the last 15 years refining them." does not make any sense as Tencent does not decide anything at Epic. The fact you state "the social systems designers that came up with Sesame Social Credit." Shows a clear lack of knowledge that the fact that no designer or person from Tencent works at Epic. https://www.pcgamer.com/tim-sweeney-does-not-take-any-orders-from-tencent-says-epic/ https://www.shacknews.com/article/111062/epic-games-ceo-tim-sweeney-addresses-chinese-investor-tencent
I'm not sure which parts you're saying are unintentional. The primary focus of the video, all the emotional and psychological hooks the game utilizes, are absolutely intentional as Tencent has spent the last 15 years refining them. I mean, we're talking about the social systems designers that came up with Sesame Social Credit.
Pretty ironic that "Experience" points aren't based on how experienced you are and rather had more to do with how much money you pay.
Marshmallow?! Pft! Let me know when they can book KK
They gave emotes away for the marshmello event for doing challenges.. they offered the season 8 battle pass for free if you completed a few simple challenges at the end of season 7... almost every console has given away free exclusive (to that system) skins... it’s a free game... multiple free back blings for challenges and free tier battle pass... no loot boxes... yes skins are expensive but you don’t have to buy them... you can spend about 50 bucks a year on the game and have plenty of skins from the battlepasses (which are exclusive skins)... clout chasing fortnite is what is really happening here.... Well played sir... well played.
Why must you stare into my soul and wave your arm? What have I done to deserve this
While I appreciate the research you did into the psychological effects related to the game's item shop and battle pass, there were some very key points that I thought you were disingenuous or too heavily opinionated for how matter-of-fact you presented everything. First, just because you don't find the game particularly good or entertaining does not mean that it objectively isn't. I have played the game for over a year now and still play it because I enjoy it, not because of bought cosmetics, of which I have very few (more on that in a second). Secondly, it seems all of your research has been done in the past month alone. While that's not a bad length of time to gather information, you failed to mention that at the end of the last 10-week season, Epic released free-to-play challenges that would automatically reward you with this season's battle pass, absolutely free. In addition, you fail to mention that by reaching a high enough level in each season's premium or "gold" battle pass, you unlock the required amount of in-game currency to "purchase" the next season's battle pass, without spending any additional money at all. I didn't have a battle pass until this season, because I got this one for free, and if I simply complete enough challenges, many of which can be done completely unintentionally just by playing the game, I will get next season's battle pass as well, still without ever putting a cent into the game. All of this you neglected to mention. Finally, and it isn't that big of a deal compared to the rest, the music and choreography of the Marshmello concert were pre-recorded, yes, but the vocal cues were coming from the artist in real-time. You conveniently failed to mention that. It seems that just as you say Epic has ulterior motives with how they run their flagship game, you also have ulterior motives in creating this video. Just some food for thought.
"First, just because you don't find the game particularly good or entertaining does not mean that it objectively isn't" And you say I'm the one stating things too matter-of-fact.
when you stare at that emote long enough you really realize how wrong it looks
Boo hoo capitalism is bad and we should blame evil corporations for the fact that parents these days don't properly educate their children
+Joacy Neto You're right in that educating people has the potential to start fixing the problem, I just take issue with making it seem like the parents' fault in the first place for not being willing to deal with constant begging from children. Parents giving into that is usually a bad thing but also how parenting has been since basically forever, so it's much more an issue of the companies exploiting the situation in the first place. Were powerful organizations solely out for money not a thing, this problem wouldn't exist. The difference between that and bad parenting is that parents giving into chidlren's demands has been the state of things since abusing them in the name of keeping them in line stopped being a thing (hopefully we can agree that that ending is a good thing), whereas the endless quest for money and power businesses are on is the product of a specific and undesirable mode of society (capitalism without regulations on these kinds of things) that has the potential to be changed for the better. Personally I think that the likelihood of regulating capitalism such that this isn't an issue in games anymore and/or just ending it entirely isn't that likely to happen in a reasonable timeframe, so either way our solutions to the problem line up (educate parents on the danger of microtransactions and other physiologically exploitative factors of society), but I just take issue with acting like this is the parents' fault for acting as the overwhelming majority of non-abusive parents always have thanks to human nature (people not wanting to deal with crying children after an eight hour work day and then a trip with them through the grocery store or whatever the situation may be).
+Out of Character Day in my opinion educating kids in how the world works could help in far more way than the micro transaction department. We can't just blame lazy parenting on capitalism
+Joacy Neto Giving a child free reign over what they want to buy and not is solely stupid parenting, yeah, but also pretty much the worst-case scenario; most of the time, things like this end up being more like a kid asking their parents for am Xbox Live/Switch/Steam/whatever gift card every time they go to the grocery store or constantly begging to be allowed to buy a given new item and things to that effect, where the parents are way less likely to detect a problem early on and by the time they do it's far more trouble to try and rip their kid away from the game for good and put up with the whining that ensues than it is to just pay them the five dollars again. At that point parents still have influence and, depending on how much they're willing to put themselves through, can fix the situation, but at that point it requires tons of effort that lots of parents, regardless of what generation they're from, wouldn't want to deal with, and was caused in the first place through something beyond their control, assuming they aren't skeptical towards microtransactions to ban their kids from them in the first place. And that would be the best solution - to educate parents on microtransactions and get kids to stop paying them entirely - but that's a long way off and a problem that was produced by the company in the name of profit. Assuming capitalism's here to stay, education on microtransactions should be the ideal to work towards, but in no way should that being necessary as a goal to work towards be blamed on parents.
+Out of Character Day that's why you don't give a credit card to a 8 year old
+Joacy Neto So eight-year-olds are meant to be able to understand and avoid psychologically manipulative marketing? Like don't get me wrong, media literacy is invaluable and people should absolutely learn it to avoid things like this, but the issue is that the target audience in this case is literal children who, even in the event that they cognetively understand how all of this works, will still almost certainly lack the metal development/will power to resist temptation like this just as a fact of their age.
+Out of Character Day yeah of course parents can't be there with their kids all the time. But that's when proper education comes in hand
In an ideal world parents would psychically be aware of every psychologically exploitative thing their kid wanted to get involved with and keep them from doing so but that's never going to happen unless parents carefully dissect literally everything their kids want to get into on any level, and in a world where practices like the ones outlined in this video are getting more and more common that's what would be necessary to prevent corporations from manipulating children en mass. And what with the universality of advertising, psychological exploitation is everywhere today to the point where the only "responsible" thing a parent could do if we're going to be putting all the blame for people being manipulated into buying things on them is move their family to somewhere outside of capitalism itself.
I'm surprised people liked this video was, considering how little you seem to know about the game and the lack of experience you seem to have. I was expecting something good but just got a disappointment. A shame.
5:37 it was life actually, marshmello has said it and epic has confirmed it. good video though :)
You worked hard to make a free game with no pay to win mechanics sound like a skinnerbox, I don't think you succeeded.
I really like this video! On point! (new subscriber here)
I'm glad that I don't like this "appealing aesthetic" you talk about, because I would hate to have a good art style squandered on such a predatory game. But that also means I spent much of the time covering the video because the animations are just irritating to see.
There's more to the video than just the point that there's social pressure to buy otherwise pointless bells and whistles; that's literally like 1/5th of the video at most, the rest is dedicated to the other ways you're pressured/manipulated into buying things, and even if all of that was absent, social pressure like that existing in the first place is still a problem.
It's a free game! Are they not allowed to advertise things that cost money within the game? I've played tonnes of Fortnite BR and have not spent more than $25 on Vbucks - I could've paid nothing if I wanted to and still be as successful at the game. If you're shrewd you can buy one battle pass and get every single battle pass thereafter by never spending an extra dime. If people are smart they won't be bled dry by the system. I mean, even Battle Pass Season 8 was available as free. Your shallow critique of the core BR game is largely unfounded and would be bold to deem as confident, I would deem it as brash. Fortnite is probably the most advanced BR game on the market. There's no other BR that has skill-based match making but FN does actually have it (namely 'Arena'). Furthermore the building mechanics are an unprecedented element in a shooter, and that expands the skill ceiling beyond any other BR; surely this is good for peoples' brains in that they have to think more and work harder whilst playing to be successful. Lastly, the midrange 100% exists in fortnite; there are muskets, AKs, M16s, D.Eagles, and hunting rifles, all with different attributes, that if used well can raze opponents at mid-range. I do think a lot of your criticisms are valid towards the children's market, in that their mates might bully them if they don't have cool skins, but the same thing happens in school with clothes and toys and gadgets - it's part of the cruelty of life unfortunately. People who spend too much on this game have deeper issues than FN, and adults that get FOMO on skins in a game ALSO need to take a long look at their lives - surely it's essentially society you're criticising and not FN?
+Out of Character Day I don't think there's anything wrong with trying to make money, and giving people a fully functioning product for free is one of the better gestures in a capitalist world that you will find. Claiming the game is 'designed' to be addictive puts it in a dark light, surely every game maker wants their game to be fun, and fun things are - by nature - often addictive. It's arguable that Fortnite's gameplay is more addictive because few other games can offer the level of fun that FN can deliver.
Yes, it is society being criticized, the particular form of society that Fortnite and its success are a product of. It's unstated but this video is basically just a case study in manipulative marketing as a result of capitalism-infused mass culture. I can't speak to the quality of the gameplay itself, but the game designing itself to be as addicting as possible can't reasonably be considered a good thing. As things stand, for art to exist the product needs to make money, but when the desire for money vastly outshines the long-term interests of the player (not wasting tons of their parents' money) it's a problem. People who get to that point probably do have other issues going on in their lives that leads them to beginning to make irresponsible choices in the first place that get them hooked, but the fact that the market builds itself around exploiting people like that is just as big an issue.
did anyone else notice her shoulders get more swoll throughout the video as she waved?
fortnight is for children. also its cute how you skimmed over the part where a sleazy Chinese company bought them out and all the old talent left.
i agree on most of your points but you seem to have missed some very big points on the battle pass. you seem not to notice or simply ignore how the stars work for the battle pass. if u were not to buy the battle pass it is extremely difficult to reach a high battle pass level since the missions that provide the majority of the start are just unavailable. u would have to be extremely dedicated to reach a level that high. i haven't played fortnite in over a year so im sorry if this is not 100% accurate, u can only 31 battle pass level from leveling and 35 from doing daily and 15 levels from free missions. the major part i u seem to not cover is the v-bucks available in the battle pass. i believe u can get a total of 1500 v-bucks if u level all of the battle pass that includes 200 from the free ones. u can get 1000 v-bucks(new battle pass is only 950v-bucks) at level 59 which is rather easy to reach. i cant remember exactly how but if u did all the missions u could reach level 70 of the battle without doing any dailies or leveling up. there are plenty of areas to bash the battle pass on such as the ability to buy levels or how it forces u to do dailies and spend time on the game everyday just to make epic increase their daily users. u seem to focus on the wrong points making your argument(about the battle pass) rather weak especially since for most people the battle pass is a one time investment that they can renew using the v-bucks they received in the previous season battle pass.
When you pronounce "been" like "bean"
marshmello said himself that the concert was live, and that was why the mic quality was bad. i think he said it in a timthetatman stream or courage i can't remember, and i cannot confirm whether it was actually live or this was just an excuse, i'm just saying what i heard. this is a great video btw, it goes really in depth into things that i never would have thought about in fortnite. truly amazing.
So basically Fortnite is a cyberpunk dystopian nightmare.
why would epic sell 40 percent of their company to figure out how to microtransaction. more likely they did it for access to the Chinese market and said it was for that. if you dont do it the goverment did what they did to pubg before bluehole sold out to tencent.
IMHO it is worth pointing out that because these companies have successfully dodged gambling regulations, there is no reason at all to believe that the gambling systems themselves are random. In fact it would make much more sense for companies to rig every single die roll against you, using exactly the same knowledge they use to create the skinner boxes in the first place.
Planet Casmo did this years ago
So you're saying that by missing out ... I ended out ahead?
I would honestly love more videos about gaming from you. I’ve recently returned to gaming after taking a 5 year break and the landscape of gaming is so different. It feels like one of the wild wests of media right now.
These strategies are probably not sustainable. As opposed to games like Roblox and Minecraft which are community driven, hence continuing to be relevant even when no longer profitable. Fortnite dies when the money dries up. And when the final servers are shut down, it will be wiped from out memories.
Inspired by PubG? Which was inspired by H1Z1.
"Default" is now a derogatory term being used to mock players that haven't paid for skin customization.
My nephew is OBSESSED with Fortnite. He was here visiting for two weeks - it was about 75% of what he would talk about. I tried to instill in him the knowledge that Vbucks are basically one cent, and and anytime he talks about how much a skin or emote cost, I would ask him to tell me how much that was in real currency. Then when we would go out to eat or something I would compare how much the cost of his burger would be in comparison to the cost of a skin. It was an up hill battle since his parents don't really teach him finances, but I hope to get through to him the value of a dollar.
Please do apex
and people say that roblox is powering your mums credit card
Technically, when Marshmallow actually spoke that was live. And also, you seem to imply you have to pay to get each battle pass but you actually get enough vbucks from just leveling up the battle pass to buy the next one and then some.
Sorry but this whole video seems pretty reachy and pearl clutching to me. I used to play fortnite every day and have only ever spent 30$ on it (I bought the battle pass once, then 2 skins) Which may seem like a lot but when you realize that most games these days cost 60$ or more, it's not a big deal. The developers are constantly rolling out new content and improving the game, which isn't free, and you're never required to pay for anything that affects your gameplay. Also I dont think your review of the gameplay is fair, I find it super fun even with the default skins. Idk maybe it's because I'm super cheap and never spend money on anything but this doesn't seem like a big deal to me.
17:19 "In order to retain all the perks of being a paid player, one would need to buy all 4 to 5 season passes every year" This is true. However, Dan fails to mention that the battle pass awards well over the number of V-Bucks required to purchase the next season's battle pass. It's usually around 1500. If a player plans ahead and saves their earned V-Bucks, always keeping more than 950 available, they would only ever need to purchase the first one with their own money. That said, most players don't have the self control to do this, but insinuating that this game costs $40-$50 per year is unfair.
I like this. This is the kind of content I like. Not digital cosmetic and tier-based micro-transaction abusing companies.
I agree with everything said here except you don’t give the gameplay- specifically the building- nearly as much credit as it deserves. It’s a groundbreaking mechanic that I believe Fortnite literally owes all of its success to. No matter how good you are at it there is always a new ramp rush or edit to learn and each of them are satisfying to learn and are very useful when used correctly. For example learning 90s and trying new ramp rushes and combining them all into intense 1v1s have been some of my favorite memories in Fortnite.
one point that is not talked about here is the free to play model you have to play about 5 seasons to get enough v bucks to buy a battle pass this battle pass in turn will give out enough v bucks to buy the next one i dont even play the game anymore but i think this should be said
when i liked the video my brother who religiously plays fortnite said i was a meanie
*waving intensifies*
incorrect his voice was live but the animations were scripted
*778 TTV streamers disliked that*
Have you ever watched a Halo machinima? They don't have any emotes, they just move the torso to make it look like they're talking. It works really well!
What I like about Fortnite is how you can role play any playstyle, especially being a sadistic stalker and laughing as you watch other players shamelessly kill each other then taking out the winner a hundred yards away with an m1.
I think I still have 46 RP from when League of Legends launched.
Damn, this was one of the most well researched and made videos I have seen, good job. ( :
Love that normies get the impression that this hostile monetization strategy is normal for games because this is all they play
See if you use big words, the 13 year old who play fortnite can't be offended.
You could have used voicechat, when you talk ingame your characters mouth moves
That waving animation is one of the most infuriating things I’ve ever seen
The Utter Cringe that i am feeling when seeing content containing this game is beyond than reading my Comments ... i left the whole thing as fast as possible (without getting the urge to play it again at a later date) behind me to never see this shit again. Now here i am, its begining to Haunt me while i want NOTHING to do with this. Seriously. Now that i started watching i begin to hear all the sounds again. Oh no, here it comes. The Urge of "I wanna play because i'm universialy Addicted to videogames".
this is a great video thank you. this is why I have never played fortnight but I've fallen for other games in the past so I think its great to talk about.
I was hooked for 5 seasons until one point i wasnt able to complete a season in time. You pay the same amount as everyone else, but if you dont play the game often, you wont get your full monies worth, which also effects the hook they had on you in the first place, as i havent been back since then...Which is what i find strange. Am i simply a rogue variable that they dont want, so they have the seasons set this way to eventually get rid of those types of players while still getting a small amount of cash from thise players?
ur a bot
This is one of the core reasons why I stopped playing the game. I did get some skins and emotes, but I did not pay a single cent for any of it. I had received Save the World as a gift, and I earned v-bucks through that. Save the World was not only fun to play, but I also earned v-bucks through it so I could get skins, battle passes, and more.
Unpopular Opinion (Probably): Short timed events suck, especially when you lose internet or power while the event is going on (making you miss out on the entire thing and then some)
The shop in this game is a huge cancer who os being copied by other games, Apex did the same shit, even the battle pass.
The monetization system is the reason why it's nice to have Save the World. Sure, you need to spend some bucks on acquiring it, but once you're in you can play all the time without effectively spending a single dime ever again because StW throws free v-bucks at you all the time. This of course isn't the case for most gamers, since they are too young to grasp that and they go ahead and throw real money at the game for some 'epeen' skin that they really want to have.
i see this is an april fools joke but no on this being prerecorded, Marshmellow has come out and said that this was all in real time, his lines were said in real time, the feature had take two or so weeks to work
Someone shops at Old Navy.
I get your argument here, especially the points you make on deceptive marketing schemes. But, the marketing strategy also has some pro's that arent discussed here (for obvious reasons, such as the video being focused on how fornite's business model is deceptive and not how it is beneficial). Specifically, Fortnite allows players to experience a massive chunk of the game without being required to pay. Fortnite's business model allows it to grow and add far more content. The business model also gives in-game content to people that want to support the growth of the game through aesthetic components. Personally, i think these attributes of the business model are highly favorable. If i want more content for the game that i enjoy, then i can pay them to deliver more and allow one of my favorite games to grow. On top of that, much more wealthy individuals can support the game better than i can, and in this way, the money spent on the game can vary based on economic class, without limiting my chances of winning or losing. This gives people incentive to set there own price for supporting the game they like, and i dont see that as bad. If I were to make a battle royale game, i would likely copy this business model, but change only 2 things. I would allow battle passes to be free, and I would make hard prices for items in the item shop (not use some deceptive currency that fails to appropriately communicate the sale, such as Vbucks). Would you guys also be discontent with this business model? If so, why? Also, i think the hate on the design of the game, saying its a subpar shooter (paraphrasing) is grossly undervaluing the technical capabilities of the game and overgeneralizing the more complex aspects of the game. You even go on to criticize the games consistent performance as a bad thing because it degrades the performance of other players. That statement supports the idea that gamers with better connection quality should have an advantage, which is foolish, especially for a 100 player match.
Ur a bit off bro pubg wasnt first there were mods for other games first
+maverickmak91 lots of ppl played the game mods though which were popular still wrong lol
He said 'popularised' by PUBG, which it was.
And a side note idk how its so impressive they put a stream in a game Japan used to stream games via tv and some system thing and you could only play some games at certain times that was back in the 90s I'm pretty sure
Positive Patrick over here, fortnite is one of the best games I've ever played. 10$ gets you all battle passes BTW , if you spend wisely.
Lol this is so sad
Fortnite is the replacement we got after club penguin shut down :(
Fortnite is trash
Fortnite sucks Apex Legends is better because you don't to worry about dealing with dumb emotes picking up wood metal and brick the only thing we have to deal with the stupid fortnite kids shooting and jumping like it is makes it easy to kill them though
As much as this is supposed to be joke, it's filled with facts. Fortnite is advertisement. They baited players into the competitive side by saying they will support it, but in reality, they use the esports events exclusively for advertisement and give no fucks about any of the "pros".
Fortnite? More like "Forknife."
the game itself isnt bad.... bare bones match making and all is what players want....
you only have to pay once. You just save up the v bucks you get for being a gold player to buy the next pass
Wow.......an amazing video
Take me to the xbox to play fortnite today
Its a social contract. I will take Fortnites incentivised invite to play every day as long as they provide a game worth playing. Fortnite offers a constantly changing and interesting game where I am offered items that give no competitive advantage whatsoever. Meanwhile for a one time purchase of single player you can earn in game currency continually without paying anything more. Its all nowhere near as nefarious as you make it out to be.
As if i couldnt hate fornite more for the example its setting in the gaming industry, they pull this.....
The concert was actually live. There werent any voice fiiles and in replay mode it doesnt have his voice at all. The second time it aired it actually wasnt live though (as far as i know)
Really great presentation. You taught me a lot.
0:01 sec in the video - press pause - check comments about the lobster shirt Consumption habits have changed drastically since the era of television.
Chinese spyware will not be installed on my PC.
Notice how tier 62 says 'The End' as the title of the cosmetic? Very interesting. (Timestamp: 16:05 .)
wow i hated this game for its shitty gameplay but i didn't realize just how bad every other aspect of it is. i guess epic games went the way blizzard did. damn, all the companies i liked in the 90's and 2000's became villains. except id software. i mean, bethesda is evil but id is still awesome.
marshmello says the audio was live though. He could have lied but he seemed convincing
battle royal isn't a horror film.
"Bias piece" says the guy willing to spread his ass cheeks for Epic Games lmao
1) in all interaction of life pedophiles can exist, but you know, they are few 2) welcome to free to play games, were a lot of people play completely free, a subsection gives some money once in a while and another section has so much money that a couple of hundred dollars is pocket change :D 3) also, the type of game, even free players provide value to the experience, if only whales played the game it whole be boring and very limited community
+Folding Ideas Wow how the argument changes. So if I go to the store and buy a game because I purchased the game a full game. That game is sinister. Or manufactured discontent. I'm not getting what you said because you video was about all this trickery used to make people feel like that have to spend money. Never talking about that full game that you can buy and get all the other stuff for free. You say if you bought save the world it's not free. OH LORD here we go. I'm going to help you again lost child. If you bought fornite the full game you got to play the game and all its worth a year later they came out with a extra free mode. Mind you they could have kept the 2 completely separate. Instead of doing that they gave you stuff and one and said go ahead and use it in the other free of charge. They could have easily had a totally different currency. Not vbucks but fbucks. The simple fact that they didnt do that throws your sinister or manufactured discontent comment out the door. So yea the vbucks that you get in one and use in the other makes it free. One example. You buy tickets to a basketball game you go to that basketball game you got what you paid for. Now what if at the basketball game they say we giving away a free car, or hat, or tshirt for free. Are they lying is none of that free because you had to pay for the basketball tickets. Damn bro you slow but I give you this you did a damn good job at fooling people that dont know. But you flat earth people always get busted.
If you buy Save the World then it isn't free.
Sponsored by Fortnite
Pretty sure marshmallow said everything live tho. Correct me if I’m wrong
took 6 minutes to get past non padded content. still nothing related to manufactured consent. k
What the name of this video should have been..... A 40 year old man in a lobster button up talks about nothing for 20 mins
Dude, you epically failed. The Marshmellow event WAS live. Check your facts first. He even said himself in an interview that it was live.
I think your criticisms sometimes can also be positives. This is my preferred microtransaction model. Not p2w but gives enough incentive to make the company money. If you buy a battlepass then you will earn enough bucks to buy the next for free. Ontop of the fact that this one was free and unlockable for a while. You could literally buy a starter pass in an early season and earn some free bucks and then purchase every single battlepass that comes after and get all the content. I'm honestly happy for epic since they completely dominated a toxic gaming sphere with a game that was of this nature. Compared to most other systems. This ones a dream.
Marshmello said that he was saying all those things live my guy
Also if you pay 10 bucks once or you got the overtime challenges you can keep thr battle pass as you get enough vbucks
Just overtime challenge. Oh wait to late... Sorry bro
Just gotta say when he did say stuff that was live but probally onba delay for bandwidth and stuff like private stuff
Idk I find the game good, constant updates and changes, let them charge whatever for skins etc. If they need to promote their store and the things they sell, all power to them, wish I was them.
The thing is he doesn't play fortnite so he doesn't know anything about the game
One flaw: The marshmello concert actually WAS live and marshmello (christopher comstok) actually spoke to the playerbase in real time, Even confirmed by himself and epic, It was not a pre recorded concert by all means, it was truly live
The video starts at 5:00
The confusion emote looks like talking.
The arm, the shoulder, the armpit....so much is wrong about that wave.
1) Marshmallow's voice was streaming live, it was not a recording. What he said was scripted, sure, but live. 2) Of course the hoverboard has the boost on shift key, with space key you jump (you can see it if you pause the video 11:05, left). Shift is the "sprint" key (now always active by default). You can't jump on the quad, just boost. You can bind both shift and space key to boost the squad and other vehicles too. 3) You say Fortnite BR as game isn't particulary great, which pushes your point of "this is all psychological strategies that keep you hooked like the economy system, battle pass, manufactured discontent..." If the game wasn't great, even with all those psychological strategies it becomes boring pretty quickly. Then you say "moderately ok shooter with a unique twist". Don't you think that's the point? that the actual game experience is that "unique twist" to what the game is? yet you bash it with "moderately ok", "but hey unique twist". ??? Then you say 16:13 "I actually needed to play a lot of fortnite pretty much everyday (...) to ensure I understood the game itself well enough to speak about it confidently" well seems like you didn't since you are throwing half truths here just to push a narrative, which was not necessary at all to prove your point, this video could've been half its length and still prove your point gracefully without having to throw crap at the game to push your narrative.
Lmao ps the concert was live lol
Ahh back when siphon was a thing mannthengood ol days
Folding Ideas: It's not possible for YOU to put on a concert in fortnite. Me: Hold my beer
nobody forces anybody to play the game you know that right?
Comstock!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I don't think it's as bad as you are making it out to be but you aren't really wrong about anything in particular.
There were Overtime Challenges in February which gave away a free battle pass.
This video helped me to understand, finally, what exactly the hell a 'live service' game is and I swear to god if this is what they do to Dragon Age I'm going to die on the spot
Ya barely get enough points to progress, I only 45 ish levels, there's one hundred, so ya have to come back EVERY SINGLE DAY in order to complete the stupid battle pass...
Wow, that really is highly manipulative
I came for hot player on player action and instead I get an existential crisis
Yo this deep
I have never played fortnite but I am looking at the character models in the video and on "The Laguna Pack" 8:17 and I'm like "man those are actually some pretty good looking models".
This is real good.
2:32 thanos butthole
Is no one gonna mention his tabs in the article screenshot lol
You're not breaking new ground here, this is how free-to-play games worked for years, and people have been complaining about Skinner boxes and FOMO for years. Monetizing a game you invested your money into making doesn't become evil just because you used a couple of buzzwords and spoke of "deconstructing a narrative".
Who gave this man the right to be *so woke*
My experience playing fortnite and interacting with other people who play causes me to disagree with most of his points. When a game ends everyone I ever play with just starts another one right away they don't say hold on I'm going to go look at stuff in the item shop. They might say hold on I have to go pee, or check on my family, or kill spider or whatever, but not let me go see what there is to buy. I'll admit as a free to play a game it does encourage you to spend $10 to buy the battle pass. Though unlike he said it only needs to be a one-time purchase because throughout the course of any season of playing you can earn enough v-bucks to buy the next season's battle pass without spending any real wrold money and you can even have some v-bucks leftover. Between the last season and the ongoing one they even introduced an extra week of overtime challenges where if you completed them you earned this seasons battle pass without having to spend any v-bucks on it at all! I have spent $10 on this game. That's it, $10 I've been playing for about 4 seasons (not quite a year,) and I've played for about 600 hours. A drop in the bucket compared to some but more then worth my $10 buy in. I have worked to hit tier 100 in each season and I have EARNED a large selection of skins and emotes. I rarely go to the item shop and when I do it's just to see what's there (only very rarely getting anything, because earning v-bucks takes a fair amount of effort.) I've never once used real-world money to buy anything in the item shop only v-bucks I've earned through play. I play fortnite because I enjoy playing the game and use it as a way to hang out with friends regularly. (I've even made friends through the game who I would have never possibly met in real life.) As far as the marshmallow thing goes asking you to use your favorite emotes and whatnot I had plenty to select from, as I stated above, because I made a one-time $10 purchase on my first battle pass. The only thing this game makes me want to spend real world money on is a quicker more stable internet connection LOL
Haha I wrote a novel
That was fantastic, I will be sure to show this to my son when he is older to help explain why I never let him play this game when he was a little kid. I knew it had some very questionable elements, but you really pulled back the carpet and showed all the rotted floorboards. Well done.
the first battle royal game was the minecraft hunger games mini game. js
I thought this would be about how they've created (manufactured) their own discontent with the recent changes they made.
Laid out like this it is all rather spooky. Thanks for sharing.
H1Z1 was a thing long before PUBG tho.
What’s your target audience for this video? If you have one that is, just curious.
jesus! that waving animation is cringe distilled
Didn't Minecraft do this year's ago
guys keep buying shit from epic games and fortnite. my shares in tencent and my retirement depends on YOU! imma go play apex now, k.
I like the PAYG model. Lets be honest, if the game was shit no one would play it. It seems like you are putting its popularity down just to comsetics and their 'immoral' practices.
One thing you missed out on- you can buy battle passes with V-Bucks. After 3 seasons or so of moderate play, a free player will have ~1000 vbucks, which can be used to buy the battle pass. After that, you get many more vbucks from the battlepass, so after unlocking or buying one battlepass, most people should be able to afford the next one.
After all these years it's clear to me that live service games that are bought first and then supported by in game transactions scale to be less predetory for the players in the long run then the free to play in game transaction games. Look at Overwatch, we used to think it was an evil scam from hell that only existed to lure people to buy lootboxes but since day one they never locked anything behind a pay wall. Sure they've made it harder for event stuff to be won from boxes but i've never given any money for lootboxes yet i own almost every cosmetic. Compared to the manufactured discontent of Fortnite Overwatch's system proved to be lucrative enough to keep the development up much after the buyer wave has ended and also it never forced anyone to buy any lootboxes ever.
that flappy waving animation is killing me!
It's a shame you couldn't talk more about this subject, honestly. What you've described here is just the tip of the iceberg for how fortnite is predatorally monetized.
Fortnite is the most soulless lifeless generic game I have ever seen
Yikes...
Can you do a Gorillaz video
I play fortnite daily and I think I'm going to treat defaults more kindly. I think fortnite should have some skins for free so you don't have to pay money to epic.
I understand and agree with everything you said. Then again, I enjoy the game. But at times I’ve thought it’s whole system is quite sinister.
Praise the algorithm.
nibba they just want to be roblox
Can you talk about VrChat? It seems like the "better future"
Noob
It isnt really a fomo tho, but god I hate games that use psychological tricks to sell something, even worse when the market is composed by children too
This guy ain't gonna like apex's battle pass
18:45 Express yourself with static content. Unironically *express my individuality with other people's creations.* MK Ultra is real. And this is the end result.
I can understand the first part but you really don’t need to except the whole game at the end. Fortnite is a game that does try to make you play but so are so many other games. Overwatch, CSGO, COD, PUBG, Apex Legends and so many others all have blind boxes and battlepasses. Just because Fortnite has micro purchases doesn’t mean that it is the worst game ever. Marshmello saying to use the emote is something that he said live, it wasn’t scripted at all he was live. Just because he said to use a certain emote doesn’t mean that Fortnite themselves are telling people to buy stuff. Just because people play this game doesn’t mean that Fortnite is a game totally about cosmetics. Maybe you don’t like it. Idk
Excellent video, really well-put. Here's another point that you would have had to play earlier to get, and I'm not sure if it's another marketing gimmick or not, but it kind of feels like one; for almost the first whole _year_ of Fortnite being the most popular game in the world, and freely available on PC and console and being prominently advertised, it _still_ said "Closed Beta" on the loading screen, as if you were part of some exclusive club that had access to it. I'm not sure if Epic Games knows what "Closed Beta" means, but it doesn't mean what they thought it meant. As I said, I really have no idea, but it felt like yet another gimmick just to make everybody feel special. It made absolutely zero sense.
Well the concert was partially pre done but the voice over was live as it happened
i don't have any major issue with FTP games that have microtransactions or premium features. but it is good to be conscious of these kinds of manipulations, so cheers to you. i will admit that the whole meta-currency games have you buy is annoying to deal with, especially if it's setup in a way that would leave you with odd numbered currency leftover after purchases.
*And so it gets worse.*
well played and i was about to report you for clickbait yeah i know it does nothing but at lest its something
I remember the book like 10 years ago, little did I know what would await
Very true
Lol, epic gamer moment
Can't wait till you can host videos on Fortnite and watch it with 60 other people in an in-game theater. The youtube killer will finally be upon us.
Great video, I would absolutely LOVE to see your take on Warframe.
Eri Kitamura or was the VA of Quna in Phantasy Star Online 2 is sorta the 1st artist to perform live in an online game for me(scripted like Marshmellow's performance in Fortnite) and actually have real life concert in an online game. Well and later on in that same game, Hatsune Miku and Megurine Luka and other Japanese artists. Well its still doing it till today in 2019 with Episode 6 lol. Fortnite's live performance in game with 60 players is cool and all, but it just is pale in comparison to PSO2 whom already did it since 2012 onwards. Sure Fortnite is much more successful than probably even PUBG but its really ironic that the concept of Battle Royale is also from a Japanese film too. And yes I agree with your video about the damn exclusivity that mentally forces you to buy their microtransactions or look boring and generic as fuck.
I think she has a thyroid problem, that armpit is just wrong...
Wait was predicted by Ready Player One?
The first one was actually live but the second time was prerecorded
Damn I'm glad I play warframe....
I understand what you're saying but the thing is SOME of the onus still applies to the consumer to make responsible business decisions.
This is the only well done video game review I have ever seen
Wasn't Second Life here about a decade ago? With more customization and less rules. But it never broke out of its niche with a frantic BR game appealing to teh kidz I guess.
Disgusting.
Whatever it takes to be ready for a Fortnite Marshmello concert, i don't want to be it.
Same!
I played fortnite for like 5 months, and everything he says is right
If you spend under 10 dollars. You can earn vbucks. Buy a season pass and earn vbucks that pay for the next season every season. If you feel like you need validation by skins and emotes after that point then I'm sorry but you either are ok with paying or are weak minded On the other hand. The game is played by weaker minded children. So in this context. The video is right. It's a bit evil in that sense.
Indiana Jones thx
as someone who doesn't play video games but experiences a lot of fomo when it comes to movies and tv shows, this video actually really helps me in terms of understanding just how engineered fomo actually is from a business and psychological standpoint.
Remember teamcreaft
Amazing video. Really boils down the reason why I don't like this game as live service.
This video basically addressed all the ways I love and hate Fortnite in smart people words.
It's more than just the impulse control. You don't feel good being trained to expect treats and then get denied it. You'd have to be a very special human to actually not feel any effect of a skinner box. AFAIK there's no way to disable the free portion of the battle pass either. And buying the pass only makes it worse. Now you've made a monetary investment and you've made it a goal to keep a CHAIN of very high level progress each season. Your choice of game is influenced by more than what you feel is great to play right now. I've felt this a lot with multi-player games I know will die rather quickly that I enjoy (I enjoy Arena fps games). You lean towards playing that game very strongly and can become quite torn about it. I would say in my case I actually don't mind it that much because I want the experience of playing the game and I get it immediately when I made my choice. But when you're after the exclusive battle pass skins or keeping a chain going I'm not sure you'd be all that pleased really. It's really insidious. It might even keep us playing videogames more than we want.
I would love to see more. I don't engage with Fortnite because of this so I'll never know the problems.
two words buddy ro blox
wow that was .. dark.
I am so glad I really don´t like this game. So I don´t waste my money in it.
Look i get that the prices are a bit jacked up and it may seem very easy to spend money on cosmetics, but i think so many people here are acting very entitled. Its a FREE game that lets you do literally everything except change how you look. You are at absolutely no disadvantage whatsoever playing this game without spending a penny yet people still complain. Its the same shit with counter strike, you only pay if u want to change the look of your guns, thats it. If someone wanted to buy every battlepass to date it would run them about $70 and for a game with this much support and longevity i think that is completely worth it. I mean you can spend $70 on one meal at a high end restaurant that will last u an hour vs hours upon hours of enjoyment playing this game. I personally did not have time to watch the entire video but my comment is more directed at some of these other comments saying how disgusting Fortnite is. People need to realize that all it takes is some self control to avoid buying cosmetics, and as for kids, I dont see a problem with kids asking for skins as long as it is reasonable. It is up to the parent to decide when to buy their kid gifts/reward them and i see nothing wrong with a kid asking for a skin in a game that they cherish. Its like buying them a whole new outfit to express themselves and while i disagree with some of the pricing, if the kid is happy and i feel they earned it then I as a parent am happy. Sorry for the rant, just someone who has been playing the game for a long time and thought i could add my 2 cents.
but if you buy a battle pass you don't have to buy a battle pass ever again
man your edit is just GENIOUS fun i fuckin loved it
What's most concerning is not the consumer related issues, but the long term psychological issues for young people. There's the immediate "addictive" aspect, and that's really quite bad. But there's also the psychological conditioning aspect that is a bit concerning. One that goes way beyond gaming, but to digital/psychological conditioning in general. We live in a world where such conditioning is pervasive and invasive now. People are actually quite good at segmenting and sandboxing their behaviours to the appropriate situation or paradigm, but if you can condition someone for one paradigm, and then subtly introduce aspects of that paradigm into something else (say social or political), then you have a way to powerfully train and influence people across various paradigms without them clueing in. I could see this working across film, games, social media, and politics. We already naturally manufacture our own conditioning, on ourselves, and each other, but things have changed. It's no longer just advertising, education, and our own social queues. The tools and infrastructure are much more pervasive, targeted, interactive, and controllable now. And who really steps back to take a look at patterns across all the forms we are bombarded with? Not that many people are doing it.
I think the reason this season had no rewards past 60 was specifically to bait in new paying players because anyone who played/ bought the last season got this one for free. As a result, paying players didn't notice the gap from 60-100, so didnt protest. Man, fuck hostile design.
It's all about the $$$. Also, a lot of these started to feel REALLY bad to me when I started playing, so I stopped after about a week.
Dislikes are only from Fortnite extremist who have no life.
What servers are you playing cause when I play I never find people who aren't bum-rushing while building.
I didn't realize that Corporate Dystopia began with this game.
2:32 LMAO the ad on the side
Bro I’m really about to cry right now thank you so much for this video because every time I tell people I hate this game they ask me why I play it. I get invited by my closest friends that’s the only games they want to plat with me :(
They do this shit to kids bro
I’ve bought multiple skins, battle pass, and unlocks. So many weekly challenges. I GOOGLE THE CHALLENGES AND GET FORTNITE ADDS
And I’m really not one to demonize anything man I just know that their are so many victims who don’t know they’re VICTIMS
I fucking pray for you bro I stg this shit is a curse on humaity
Marsh walk they couldn't come up with a better name
Not just that, the game in close quarters is higly randomised, and by playing the game a lot in most of the seasons, it's supposed to be frustrating. It makes use of the rush of adrenaline and the excitment that player recives after killing someone, purpusefully randomised. Great video btw, keep it up!
I'm gonna be brutally honest with the defaults complaining. Fortnite isn't "supposed" to be a free game. If you don't purchase the Battle Pass you aren't really experiencing the "real" game, you're playing something more akin to a trial or demo. Now is that predatory? No, because that's how you buy most of your games—you go to a store, pay an upfront price, and gain access to the real meat of the content.
For real, people are incredibly entitled. If they make the game free then they've gotta make up that money somehow. Fortnite isn't "supposed" to be a free game. You are meant to purchase the battle pass to get the proper experience, just like most other titles require you to pay an upfront price to access the game.
20:38 "fortnite erotic fan fiction"
Completely unrelated, for which I apologize profusely. I was binging some of your old videos with my hedgehog, and at the very end of one you had a bonus clip of your hedgie! Do you still have the hoog? If anyone knows about the current hoog status I’m dying to know.
About the point made at 14:00... The free pass is actually structured so that you reach the end of the free items at the exact same time as the paid players reach the end of the paid pass. It’s exact, and definitely not a coincidence. I didn’t buy the battle pass for quite some time, so I witnessed this first hand for about 3-4 seasons because my best friends owned the pass. This happens because the paid pass has tiers that earn “bonus XP percentages,” while the free does not. There are also paid challenges with XP bonuses, and if you bought the last season, a good boost to the pass at the beginning. So, the paid users accelerate faster. Definitely manufactured discontent. More people should pay attention to this stuff.
This is the greatest piece on scummy F2P practices I've ever come across. Having made my livelihood off a F2P platform for the better part of 3 years, this sums up my experience adapting to the environment very well. It's a grossly competitive market that regularly engages in predatory practices, yet I'm still hopeful that people can make it big without involving themselves in the seedier practices it offers.
God I miss Super Monday Night Combat...
Really unsettling, Dan! Thank you!
Remember, people are being worked to death* over this. *It's called hyperbole.
For me, I’ve been playing this since it came out. My biggest hook is getting a win. Just that feeling that “hey, YOU DID IT!” It’s just a great thing to experience that makes you wanna play more and more.
Why are you so pretentious?
Folding ideas: DJ Marsh Mello Me: Whomst?
so, what can we do?
It seems like the character got those muscles just to do all that waving...
Ser Olson, I'm very, VERY surprised to see Epic Games has yet to publicly put a price on your head for this piece of critical analysis of their insidious cash cow mechanisms. And of GAAS deesign and business practices as a whole.
"Free games" are a fucking nightmare
*ARE THOSE RATING ENABLED I SEE?*
Why is knowing what you're talking about considered pretentious
Can we get Excited Smiley Girl to host a season of Folding Ideas?
I have to admit that the monetization scheme of Fortnite is the best one right now, or even ever. the manufactured FOMO cranked up to 9000.
All the use of FoMo makes me wonder how much is ten cent or whether or not this is just the path a f2p games are destined for
The bit with the combatative capitalism where you pay in a lot or arent even in the game, describing it as the future, is sinister, and very possible.
i want to kill that girl that keeps waving
This is mostly rubbish. There are very few dark patterns here. There are no loot boxes, you can't buy your way to victory. The game mechanics have nothing to do with anything. The costumes changing every is no different than Zara changing it's fashion. There's very little going on here but a fun and slightly addictive game that's literally *free*. I played for 5 months before giving $10 to buy a single outfit and that's it. It's the best gaming deal ever. Also, Fortnite will lose popularity and collapse over this summer.
*Dab your hearts out and jump on the battle bus, I'm dropping in to Retail Row and I've got an orange pump pointed right at your default.*
Great video.
That waving avatar is incredibly unnerving. That face... those eyes...
Waaaiit, Fortnite ISN'T just the battle royale?
I work with children. The number of kids (roughly age 7 - 12) who tell me to emote mid IRL conversation or complain to me that their parents wont pay/ that need money to emote is increasing.
And this is why I play Warframe.
This makes Wargaming.net with its ludicrous bundles look like orphaned children in comparison. Holy shit.
Just FYI there were live concerts in TF2 like 10 years ago...
the concert was live
a hierarchical economic system designed to commercialise self-expression where have we seen that before :}
0:00 "I have zero idea what Fortnite is, so let's watch this educational video!" 21:19 "WE ARE ALL DOOMED TO MADNESS AND DEATH. RESISTANCE IS FUTILE." **goes back to watching Chernobyl to lift her spirits a little**
*choking and sputtering* ready... ready player one was rightba lfvn b DOFVN JNnPINVCANPn,cvm. b odln .kdn v
Epic shirt
I love how your last ominous words are followed by a headshot. The bearer of bitter truth in this dystopian monetization hellscape, assassinated from a hidden location by a tencent sniper - 14 year old with a mom's credit
Honestly, Fortnite is a horrible game, not that PUBG is any much better. Then again.. i never liked BR games in the first place until Blackout and Apex-Legends. The gunplay in this game is terrible with a building mechanic that makes the game even worse. Not to mention the fact I also strongly dislike the art style in Fortnite,
"This is ultimately the meaning of Game-as-a-Service. Its just a euphemism for a game that takes up all your free time and becomes the only game that you play, because its just an elaborate constantly resetting Skinner Box that utilizes progression systems and seasonal competitions as a means to place you constantly in the path of an endless stream of monetary interactions." - Thank you, Folding Ideas.
And that future is terrible.
10:30 the fully randomised matchmaking without concern for player skill is deliberate. 1. In the same vein as skinner boxes for loot, gameplay success can also be framed as a skinner box by putting you up against vastly differently skilled opponents. Sometimes you get lucky and pwn everyone, sometimes you get unlucky and a better player kills you instantly. 2. It gives players a better sense of their skill progression. Skill matchmaking constraints players to a 50% winrate in 1v1 scenarios as they will be about as good as their competition. But removing this constraint, you will see your kills and win rate go up as you become a better player. This gives people a constant sense of progression that serves as a strong motivation.
Ah, the game mechanics of a video game have nothing to do with anything. Bold theory
See a doctor
You don't know what "pretentious" means, which is always a treat
Excellent analysis, everything I thought was wrong with this game but couldn't express in addition to some dystopian shit I hadn't even thought about. Debord dabs in his grave.
When you were making the argument that different vehicles have weird controls all you needed to do killing two birds with one stone would be scrolling down the control screen on the options menu. It's kinda crazy how many DIFFERENT keys you can bind, especially with mouse and keyboard.
I think the weirdest thing about this whole blow up about the concert is....PSO2 has literally been doing similar things for nigh on 7 years at this point. Most concerts actually trigger massive serverwide raids where you fight various near-godlike entities and it's all good fun because 1) it's all very free and 2) it's always PvE. Granted, PSO2 *just* finally got clearance to come west (thanks SEGA) so not everyone has obviously had the chance to enjoy such things, but it was really bizarre personally seeing so much hype for an in-game concert that just....didn't do anything. It was completely irrelevant in every way. Just a way to show off Fortnite as some kind of "media platform", when it kinda barely counts as just a game so much as a rather expensive and hostile trophy cabinet to run up and shake in other people's faces.
Wtf is up with dj’s dressing up like children’s cartoon characters???? I played fornite in the beta and I’m shocked to hear they still don’t have proper match making. It makes me think you missed something crucial on their psychological manipulation playbook. Awhile back activision got heat when it was revealed they had plans (or was it a patent?) for a new matchmaking system that would try to dynamically match players together based on the type of skins they think you’d purchase so for example. In fact matching you with seasoned players who purchased skins you might find cool is just part of it. They want you matched with players who dumpster you with those skins so you associate that purchase with in game performance. Of course it’s just cosmetics but he psychological manipulation is there. You want to achieve prestige and be good at the game. A part of that prestige is attached to how dedicated players (who end up caring more about how their toon looks) present themselves so that less skilled players will want to use those skins. It’s why League of Legends has all the skins unlocked on the tournament environment so pro players can showcase their skins and associate their, rightfully, earned prestige with that item. Of course league is super toxic in that it locks gameplay elements (champions) behind a pay wall. Also you think shotguns are bad lol. In the beta they didn’t have a universal cooldown so you could rapidly swap between pump action shotguns to land quick kills. Hopefully the net code has improved, I always thought fortnites core gameplay was good. It’s shooting mechanics unique (not hit scanny) gives the fights a better feel. There’s definitely a place for rifles and medium range weapons, you can use them long range too. Hell I used to fuck people up with the pistol across that big lake. The building mechanics are clunky because it’s a game made to work on controllers, on PC you probably need to keybind building and I was too lazy to do that. I think your underselling the game a little bit. It’s a fun and satisfying shooter, unlike pubg, at least it was in beta, all the weapons had uses imo. Honestly it’s biggest fault is that I get tired of the RNG which is key to its appeal I think, you’ll eventually have the good fortune of winning match. I think it’s fun but without the psychological manipulation I don’t think it would be the monster it is today. RiP unreal tournament.
Not gonna lie. I can't finish this video after 4:54 because there might be more of that music and there is no way I'll ever listen to that again. That was the most hostile, grating, tonally shite and overall garbage music that was ever heard by anyone. I'm sitting at work and my mood is honest to go so much worse than it was 5 minutes ago. So, sorry man. Love your videos but I'm done with this one. Just can't do it.
Most interesting vidéo. Sadly this type of monetization scheme is the more and more the norm.
I only have the battle pass and twitch prime skins. The biggest thing I noticed is big streamers I noticed is streamers rarely rock battle pass skins. They always rock the new pay skins usually
It's a good thing that you mention how Fortnite isn't the only game to do these things. I think it's necessary to point out the creeping cynicism that has become the new normal in entertainment media. ... However, it's actually much worse than that. It's not just video games that employ these manipulative and exploitative tactics. It's not just internet platforms either. This is a new norm for many branches of the service industry. From finances (loans, insurance, credit cards, etc...) to telecommunications providers (data plans, broadband subscriptions, etc...), to even retail (loyalty points, membership cards, etc...). It may seem less obvious, because we usually don't deal with them on a daily basis, and the information isn't condensed in one menu screen, but it's there nonetheless. This is the future, not just of media, but of social interaction in general. "Interaction design" is a popular field of research for marketing specialists and others involved in such businesses.
I shake my head at all the snotty brats who default-dance on their desks to annoy their nannies, but don't even know why the words "battle royale" are in the name of their favourite game...
This is one of the best videos on hostile design I've seen on YouTube. Brilliantly done, sir.
God why does anyone even start "playing" this though? It makes me stressed just thinking about all of these rules and logistics and purchases.
I love watching these type of videos because I have an ever growing sense of impending doom... and I just want to verify that humanity does deserve an ill conclusion.
Children are always the target of the most aggressive forms of advertisement.
This channel really is garbage. ^^
There is not, it ends right after that.
You've missed the point of the video. If you bought this game like any other, or even needed to pay for a subscription, you'd pay a set price. Fortnite and company are designed to perpetually push players to pay more through use of social pressure and the randomized storefront. Hence "Manufactured Discontent".
You've missed the point of the video. Fortnite and company are designed to perpetually push players to pay more through use of social pressure and the randomized storefront. Hence "Manufactured Discontent". It creates a hierarchy, hence why players with money for skins refer to players without skins condescendingly as "defaults." And it's referenced in the video that nothing Fortnite does is new. It's refined and compiled and targeted towards kids in a way that they spend as much as possible while tricking parents into dismissing it.
Archie no ur mom :)
No u
The one you're posting from? Agreed, very light on content.
It's popular and free to play. one is more likely to give something a try if there's no entry fee.
This makes me wonder what more benign way to earn money Fortnite could have chosen. I appreciate that the developers need to make money somehow and really no-one is forcing players to spend anything, but this does seem a little malicious. Could they instead have chosen to show ads before or after a match? Have a free version and then a one-time payment full version? I don't know.
the hand waving gives me anxiety
19:31 Coolperson222555 Wow, I finally caught that! It compliments your words very well
like Hot Topic?
It’s interesting how the whole paid skins vs randomised default avatar thing creates a visible ‘class’ distinction between players. I used to defend microtransactions as long as they were just ‘cosmetic’ and didn’t affect the gameplay but, looking at how predatory and isolating these practices have become, I feel like that was a naive opinion.
Someone asked me what I thought horror looked like. I sent them this. Does that make me a bad person?
Came back to rewatch and just noticed the hidden tab jokes haha
That wave is horrific, the cartilage and muscle sinew that shouldn’t belong in the area between arm and chest, and that stare, _that stare..._ I see it behind my eyelids, I see it in the corners, the cracks, the parts of reality the brain dismisses, the dark abyss beneath the dumpster in the alley, the black shadows between the panels of white picket fence. I look in the mirror and see a stranger staring back at me from behind my own eyes. It never stops. It never _Can_ stop.
Okay now THIS is epic
Fascinating insights as always. Thank you!
I thought Chomsky was playing fortnite :(
Came back to this video after Rainbow Six Siege announced they are jumping into the Battle Pass racket. I start to feel Siege is very similar to Fortnite but for a more core audience. The monetization on top of the price of entry includes yearly season passes and a cash shop just as aggressive and predatory to the FOMO mentality as Fortnite at times.
Forgot to watch this at release, but then I saw the news Korn is doing a concert had to come back to this.
Inspired by the film? Huh? This concept existed long before then. Royal Rumbles, for example.
I'm sure you put a bunch of great pictures and statistics and graphics and whatnot in the shot of your avatar while talking but I didn't see them because I couldn't stand seeing that feverish waving for more than fifteen seconds
On the subject of Alfonso and his lawsuit: Other games feature his dance for free, like Guild Wars 2. No problems at all. Fortnite was making a fortune off his dance. Hell I'd sue too.
14:15 Oh, like when GW2 went free to play, but after you hit level 80 and completed the main storyline, any new content beyond that (mastery levels, mounts, legendary crafting, gliders) was locked unless you bought an expansion.
Tfw you realize this game is mostly played by and targeted towards young children
Lots of the stuff in this video also sounds like the kind of tactics MMORPGs use
The whole DJ fortnite thing is stolen of the minecraft fire fest and coalchella (minecraft music festival)
Super Best Friendcast and Castle Superbeast's podcasts actually have pretty good discussions on this. They can be found on the now defunct Super Best Friends Play channel or the active Woolie VS channel in clips.
So that concert was a ten minute ad in a game?
It is an online casino in every way, except for the fact you will never actually win anything tangible on it.
the whole "randomized look" is exactly what made me quit after one game i get way too dysphoric when im forced to have a guy avatar
The only man who can convince me that Source Code is a game but Fortnite is not
I feel kind of nauseated.
I can't physically watch this video with the girl waving in the background. It's too distracting.
Wow amazin'! Keep up that optimism!
Finally after years of following the channel for improvement and learning we get player ON player action.
They're the same tactics. Video games have gotten very good at making "free-to-play" very profitable. The good news is pay-to-win is getting more rare from what I've seen, the bad news is that many of these games seem to be actively targeting children (it's sketchy enough psychologically manipulating adults).
Probably also makes a court case a lot more likely to win too. It's already difficult from what I understand to copyright a dance (my understanding is limited to that one game theory episode).
I just miss when my fall camo pattern on my AK-47 proved that I got 500 headshots :^(
man i fucking hate games as a service. the whole thing of games being full of microtransactions and forcing you to pay money over and over just to have any kind of fun. capitalism sucks the enjoyment out of everything. it's no wonder that indie games and retro games are so popular, they're the only kinds of games that you can just BUY and PLAY with no bullshit. even HD remakes have microtransactions now.
The only helpful thing Tencent does for Epic Games is _keep hold of users data_
Subbed for Fortnite. This channel has been really dissappointing since April 1st. /s
This waving is actually giving me a panic attack god damn
40 PERCENT??!??!?!?
i must've missed this, this video is so good!
i wonder how many fortnite children have seen this video completely and like... reacted
"The ability to self-express is set at a premium" - and that right there is what killed my interest in Elite Dangerous... whose parent company *also* got a big fat boost from Tencent.
"Marshwalk" is probably the most annoying, punchable word I've ever heard in my life.
did you purposely make your avatar look like the overly attached girlfriend?
In fortnite, the only way to gauge a player's skill is by their skins, which are the only visible thing tied to a player's skill level in some way. However, you also have to pay for these skins, so... basically players are judged by how much money they spend.
I must never have kids. All the bullshit they'd be put through due to society would lead me to self-immolate. P.S. "fortnite erotic -vore -incest.." I had a laugh. Peace.
Is it weird that this reminds me a lot of Club Penguin?
Very smartly done. Bravo!
