By: Bryce L. Jackson

If you follow me on any social media, I’ve made it very apparent that I hate Fortnite: Battle Royale. To me, Fortnite’s Free-to-Play BR early in its inception was riding on the popularity of Player Unknown’s Battle Grounds to save a dead game. Even though it has carved out its own identity since then, I remain staunchly against anything Fortnite. After a while and some reflection, I realized a few things:

First, this is a different version of COD vs Battlefield gamer wars of the late 00s to mid-10s. Up until recently, I was on the hardcore COD train while I turned up my nose at any mention of Battlefield. Then a day I came to the realization that its the same situation, I’m just on the less popular side this time. I poo-poo on the zany mechanics, art style, but also complete mechanics of Fortnite, while PUBG was honestly a mess on PC on first inception, a train-wreck when it finally got on an XBOX console, then finally came to PlayStation a year later. I still enjoyed watching people stream the game. I don’t mind the pace of play even though it eats time, and want to see it regain some of the player base it had before every developer and their mother got into the BR scene.

Secondly, I needed to just let people have their fun. I had to realize that I was just being resentful and hating its massive (albeit piggybacked) popularity. As much as I loathe seeing or recognizing anything positive about the game, Epic Games have had interesting in-game events and its crossover appeal has been massive. The company still screws up like introducing new meta-changing items right before esports tournaments, bugs, and whatnot. However, the game is still consistently top 3 on Twitch and its crossover ability to other genres of entertainment has been good for the acceptance of gaming as a form of entertainment in mainstream media. The revenue from the game has been so massive that Epic Games launched their own PC game store and game launcher that threatens Steam by offering a larger cut of profits to developers and challenges the PC Gaming monopoly Steam has.

With the introduction of Apex Legends that unseeded Fortnite as the top BR game, I’ve had impulses to be that guy in a comment section with the '“LUL Fortnite, Ded Game” but that’s not productive in any form. Maybe its because I’ve had this epiphany that criticizing an older game serves no purpose in the gaming ecosystem. Maybe because I’m more mature and don’t get my kicks from being toxic and meme-y. Fact is, we gamers have our own smaller communities that go hard for the games that we love. We don’t need to look over the fence and throw insults at another game we don’t hold in high regards.

Unless its Anthem…