Fortnite numbers have continued to go up since the summer. That is coming from a report at Bloomberg the game tops out above the 200 million player mark. As a reference, the population of the United States clocks in around 325 million. These numbers are staggering, but it also heralds a new generation of gamers which are coming into their own. What will that mean for the game world?
Some critics have said that the success of Fortnite has hurt the industry, claiming that the massive success of the game has pushed out indie studios and other games in their success. This is throwing stones at EPIC games for no reason. The company hit a huge level of success, you cannot take anything away from them on that. Fortnite is here to stay and no one will catch it for a while.
The game exploded last year, it grew out of generations of players moving on from Minecraft and looking for something new. Every parent I know complains about Fortnite. That is a good thing by the way.
The new generation of gamers will bring a lot of strong opinions, concepts, and new designs when they become adults. Fortnite has brought us millions of new players. Playing Atari in our basement has come a long way into huge tournaments, schools creating programs around esports, and well, the future. Our Gen X grew up with early gaming. It will be Gen Z that brings gaming into the global form of entertainment in the next ten years.
If you do not see how that can happen just think, in the 1970s we had a few hundred game designers. In the 1990s we had hundreds of games being released. Here we are in 2018 and there are now thousands of games and thousands of designers. Not to mention the billions of players, so what will that bring in the future? Well, it is an easy guess.
Now that gaming has gone mainstream and pop culture has shifted from obscurity to top forms of entertainment the Gen Zer’s will take over soon. They grew up gaming the system. Concepts like hit points or levels are embedded in their DNA. They know how to figure out systems and exploit weaknesses better than anyone else. When they take control the world will be very different. It is why you are seeing so many older concepts fail.
The Fortnite growth is an amazing thing in the world, not just for gaming but for learning and moving forward with so many new ideas. Other games will follow, you will have success and failures along the way. The important take away is that Fortnite has now led to a huge overhaul in players and awareness. EPIC games just needs another title now!
