Author: Gary Jackson

The Psychology of Fortnite: Why It’s More Than Just a Game

Your body starts releasing hormones, like adrenaline, and your heart starts racing as you get into the match. One hundred people on a map, survival game—find your supplies, weapons, materials. I’ve spoken with 50 Australian families – including 118 children aged 1-18 – about technology use, and I’m currently conducting a follow-up qualitative investigation with a further 25 teens about how they use social media. If you’re good enough at Instagram, you can find a modeling career.

The Most Important Video Game on the Planet

Life can be stressful, and sometimes people seek refuge in activities that allow them to temporarily forget their worries. Fortnite offers a virtual world where players can immerse themselves in a different reality, leaving behind their daily concerns. Playing casual games with your friends and putting in time to practice your builds probably isn’t a problem – unless it’s causing problems in other parts of your life. Most of the time, gaming problems mean you won’t get enough sleep, get in the way of your homework and mean you’ll enjoy other activities – like hanging out with your friends or family – less.

Fortnite: Millions are playing it, but is addiction to the game really a thing?

On June 30, a missile silo that had recently been added to the map activated, launching a rocket into the sky. One player managed to kill 48 of his fellow competitors during the event, violating the unofficial cease-fire. In late September, just two months after launching the original Fortnite, Epic announced Fortnite Battle Royale, a free-to-play mode that mimicked much of what made PUBG popular. “PUBG is this sort of indie sleeper hit that was slowly cultivated by hard-core fans. Landing locations were given cutesy nicknames like the urban Tilted Towers or the toilet-filled Flush Factory. Weapons can be found in glowing treasure chests, and bulletproof vests were replaced with shield-generating, Day-Glo-blue “slurp juice.” Instead of getting killed, players get “eliminated.” There is no blood.

Where did the time go? Latest console craze sees kids lost in the ‘zone’

1. Epic, on the other hand, had decades of experience making shooters like Gears of War, privileged access to the engine on which its game ran, and a near-finished game that it could quickly retrofit for the current trend.
2. Make enough detrimental changes spaced out juuust enough that no one notices.
3. More often than not, Fortnite encounters end with a lot of bunny-hopping and shotgun blasts.

Specifically, good plays and wins trigger your brain’s natural reward system, increasing feel-good hormones like dopamine and, overall, making you feel great. In fact, Fortnite is so popular it’s becoming kind of a problem for some gamers. One online divorce specialist service says that Fortnite was the reason behind about 4,500 divorces a year. And some health experts have said that Fortnite is as addictive as heroin.

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With over 250 million players worldwide, $200 million monthly revenue, it seems everyone is playing Fortnite these days. Fortnite is becoming more addictive than heroin, according to some studies. Technology giants, such as Facebook, are now investing massive resources in the metaverse — our assumed future virtual world. One of the key elements that make Fortnite so addictive is its competitive nature.

On the same day as its Fortnite Pro-Am tournament at E3, the video-game industry’s largest convention, the game was released for the Nintendo Switch, and within 24 hours it had been downloaded more than 2 million times. Analysts estimate that Fortnite is currently raking in more than $300 million a month, and has made its maker, Epic Games, more than $1.2 billion since its battle royale mode launched in late September. That’s all from a game that’s free to download and play unrestricted. The money comes from optional transactions that let players purchase new costumes, items, and dance moves for their avatars — merely cosmetic improvements that have become very lucrative.

On Reddit, a parent of a Fortnite fan posted his child’s disciplinary form. His son had gotten in trouble for calling another student a “Rust Lord,” one of Fortnite’s lower-level skins. Geek-culture gatherings, like PAX or Comic-Con, are not particularly known for roomy accommodations and effective crowd control. The implied message in the surplus of personal space was that Epic had the resources to make its events not just tolerable, but comfortable. It seemed less to reflect under-attendance and more the remains of piles of money being burned. This text was generated using a large language model, and select text has been reviewed and moderated for purposes such as readability.

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More often than not, Fortnite encounters end with a lot of bunny-hopping and shotgun blasts. Because you can’t immediately gauge your opponents’ health level, it’s always a relief when they go down. Understanding the psychology behind Fortnite addiction sheds light on why this game has become such an immense sensation. Its competitive nature taps into our natural desire to succeed while its social aspects foster connections within the gaming community. Fortnite also provides an escape from reality and serves as an emotional outlet for many players.

Additionally, Fortnite incorporates a reward system that offers players various incentives for continuous play. From unlocking new cosmetic items to earning in-game currency or leveling up the Battle Pass, these rewards provide a sense of progression and achievement that keeps players engaged for longer periods. The highs and lows experienced during gameplay can evoke strong emotions, such as excitement, frustration, or exhilaration. These emotional fluctuations serve as a form of catharsis for players, allowing them to vent their feelings in a controlled environment. Players can team up with friends or join forces with random strangers from around the world.

Returning to Mudbound, Pappy might only have killed one man in his life, but he looked that man in his eyes while doing so. This gave him the moral authority (or so he believes) to criticize his son, Jamie, a decorated World War II bomber pilot, for thinking that the hundreds of soldiers he killed from miles up in the air irrelevant. Today, with drones controlled from continents away, the entire process of war has become like…a video game. But whether you want to admit it or not, Epic Games is using some very standard psychological tools to keep you right where you are. Arm yourself with a few pieces of knowledge I’ve learned – when I got my Bachelor’s in game development – to help you be a better informed player AND customer.

In today’s digital age, where people spend more time interacting online than in person, video games provide an avenue for socialization. Fortnite takes this to another level with its multiplayer functionality. I went to high school with Marshall, the history teacher, and 15 years ago, we’d crowd around lunch tables in central New Jersey and recall mowing down each other with Warthogs in Halo, the legendary Xbox first-person shooter. We’d play often, blow each other up in artful ways, and then boast about our exploits, arguing and laughing and reminiscing the next day. Now, you can save clips of your best stuff and post them online. And thanks to mobile gaming, you don’t really ever have to stop.