Fortnite is a free-to-play video game that has become one of the most popular games ever. In it, players compete with other players in player versus player combat until only one is left alive. It has been downloaded more than 125 million times, and is generating $250 million a month for its developer, Epic Games. It has also become a favorite of social media influencers and YouTube personalities, who often play the game and provide tutorials on how to improve your score. Some parents are concerned that their children are spending too much time playing the game, and some even worry about ‘addiction’.
Parents can limit the amount of time their children spend on fortnite by using parental controls to filter swear words from text chat, disable friend requests and turn off voice or text chat; and set a password for in-game purchases. They can also use the Playtime Reporting feature, which emails weekly play reports to their child’s parent account. However, these tools do not prevent children from accessing inappropriate content if they know how to find it. The Fortnite website offers a Parental Controls Guide to help parents navigate these features.
The game’s most popular mode is called Battle Royale, where 100 players — either solo or in squads of up to four — drop into an island and fight to be the last one standing. The island shrinks in size as the game progresses, forcing players to fight until one of them is eliminated and is forced out of the match. The game’s graphics are cartoonlike, and there is no visible gore when players attack each other. Damage to other players is shown by their health bars lowering or disappearing into blue light. Players can collect weapons from chests and supply drops, other players (referred to in-game as ‘eliminations’ or ‘eliminators’), the floor, or from defeated enemies.
Other modes in fortnite include Creative and Ranked, where you can compete against other players of the same skill level to win rewards such as’skins’, which are items that change the look of your character. You can purchase’skins’ with V-Bucks, which are the in-game currency that you can earn or purchase with real money.
In the original version of fortnite, called Fortnite Save the World, you pay to play and enter a post-apocalyptic world where you must collect resources and battle computer-generated zombielike opponents. The game has been rated T for Teen by the Entertainment Software Rating Board (ESRB) and Common Sense Media, and is recommended for ages 13 and up. Apple restored the game to its App Store this week, nearly five years after Google and Epic Games were involved in a legal battle that saw the game removed from both stores. The app re-appeared with a new payment system that allows developers to bypass Apple’s 30 percent commission on in-game purchases. This has led to accusations that the app is being used for child exploitation.