The “NOT SO” free FORTNITE

How do you all as gaming enthusiasts feel when a rival wins all, with the same skill set (or even lower) but a better gears just by paying? What a Huge Dampener!

The gaming industry is full of freemium gaming models that allows the users to download and play the game free of charge, but they charge money/premium for additional features or services such as higher skilled player characters, new maps, weapons, costumes etc or that gives an edge over other players. As the popularity of free-to-play games grows, the army of their haters keeps being increasingly fierce about deeming the purpose of a “Fair Play” with people winning merely by purchasing premium gears and not through their skillset.

Identifying the pain-points of the gamers and coming forward as a “modern phenomenon”,

Fortnite mingled with the idea of a freemium model and levelled up in the arena of the gaming industry. When I first started playing Fortnite, I was overwhelmed to see that such a high-quality first-person shooter-battle royale was 100% free without demanding a premium for upgrading my skills or purchasing new armours that would help me win.

Well, this free game has managed to touch a figure of $3 billion .

Y'all must be scratching your heads on how is it possible when the game doesn't even require a dime to download?

Well, Here is how.

First of all, for all the non-gamers, Fortnite is a free-to-play, cross-platform, FPS Battle Royale game with numerous game modes, that means that the majority of the game is available at zero cost. It is extremely popular throughout the globe as one of the biggest game of the decade. As of March 2019, Fortnite recorded a player base of over 250 million people. .

Unlike typical freemium games, where you pay to improve performance, the premium purchases are only cosmetic. This has fostered a sense of fair play, but also its own wave of social pressure that has people spending, on average, $85 plus per player.

If you play Fortnite, you know that each season introduces a new plotline and often alters and introduces new landscapes on which to play. It was even big enough to score an official crossover with Avengers: Infinity War and Endgame .

Whether you started playing yesterday or you are the world's best player, if you enter the same map, you will always be on equal footing, as far as your character’s capabilities are concerned.

However, Fortnite still has its own form of in-game currency known as "V-bucks" in the game. One can buy a stylish costume, new dance moves or even a fancy new glider. However, it is all cosmetic, nothing you buy will ever improve your actual performance, it is purely about the looks. Individually these do not sound intriguing enough since it does not have any impact on the game performance but, combined with the quarterly-season battle pass the entire strategy becomes a multi-million-dollar package/day.

THE BATTLE PASS LEVEL UP

Purchasing a single skin might cost you 800 in-game currency known as V-Bucks (almost $ 8.5). A Battle-pass is a seasonal subscription that costs around 950 V-Bucks and can reward you with 8-9 skins (BETTER DEAL!). While everyone is still playing the same underlying game, each seasonal battle pass unlocks new challenges and a leveling system with rewards like exclusive gun skins, emotes and costumes for the in-game character. The pass gives the players a new purpose to play the game again, and again, and again. While the entire purpose of a Battle-Royale experience is to be the “last-person standing”, Fortnite makes it all about upgrading your character’s looks and keeping people glued to their screens just to level up quick and get more items and buying another battle pass.

Well, Fortnite certainly was the beginning of a new revolution in the gaming industry but huge game titles like Activision’s Call Of Duty Warzone and Electronic Art’s Apex legends have already learnt the same idea of Fortnite's business model. Will the economics of the gaming industry entirely change forever? Will the “Fornite’s freemium model” be the new norm? Only time will tell.

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