Fortnite: Step towards the Metaverse? 🎮

6 min readJun 13, 2021

I’m sure you’ve heard of Fortnite by now. For those of you who do not know about it, Fortnite is an online video game developed by Epic Games and released in 2017. It has three game modes, with the most popular one being Battle Royale that pins you with 99 other players and only one winner emerges at the end. Just like all other Battle Royales, you drop from a Battle Bus in the game without any weapons and equipment which have to be procured on site.

So if Fortnite is just another Battle Royale, why is every 5–25 year old crazy about it? and why is the parent of each of these children hiding their credit cards?

Fortnite Battle Royale is free to download and play. This means players can access all the title’s multiplayer modes, weapons and events without having to spend any money.
It is available on all platforms possible such as PC, Xbox One, PlayStation 4, Android and Apple devices. It is soon to be launched on the next-gen consoles as well.
Cross-Platform play allows every player to match up with every other player regardless of the platform they are playing on. This means a player on Android can play with their friend who might be on a PS4 or a PC.
Has a huge streamer base who play the game in front of large audiences every day. It has also got a lot of attention from celebrities such as Drake & Marshmello.
Pop culture galore with partnerships with Disney, Marvel, DC, Star Wars etc.

Why is Fortnite so popular? 🤷‍♀️

There are several factors that have made Fortnite into the phenom it is with about 350 million registered accounts and approx. 10 million active players daily:

If it’s free, how do they make money? 💵

Fortnite makes its money through selling cosmetic in-game items that do not provide you any battle advantage but just changes the appearance of your character. These cosmetic items include skins, gliders with which you drop into battle, pickaxes with which you can harvest wood, stone and metal, and emotes that help you express yourself on the battlefield.

The game also includes a feature called “Battle Pass” which costs approx. ₹850 for one season. The Battle Pass allows you to unlock several cosmetic items and also gives you back the ₹850 + a little more in V-Bucks, the currency that Fortnite uses in-game.

Fact: That number makes them the biggest concerts to ever happen although these were virtual so it doesn’t count, or does it?

Ok, now you know what Fortnite is, why is it so popular and how it makes money. Let’s take it up a notch now and talk about the potential that Fortnite has and how it has been leveraged till now.

I have played a lot of games in the last 3 years, and I have had a fair share of ‘WOAH’ moments, two such moments were definitely from Fortnite itself. What if I told you that Fortnite has had major concerts in-game where 10–15 million people have simultaneously logged in and watched it?

Marshmello

Travis Scott

These actually set the tone of what we can expect from Fortnite in the future. Epic Games, the company that created Fortnite, recently announced they had acquired $1 billion in funding, $200 million of which from Sony, to push forward Epic’s Metaverse plans. In the words of CEO and co-founder of Epic Games, Tim Sweeney: “We are grateful to our new and existing investors who support our vision for Epic and the Metaverse.”

What exactly is the Metaverse? 👽

The word “ Metaverse” stems from a 1992 sci-fi novel by Neal Stephenson called Snow Crash in which people use simulated forms called avatars to interact both with one another as well as non-human programs in a virtual space. To put it in simple terms, think of it as virtual world that is limitless. People could play games, but they could also talk, shop, stroll, chat, watch movies, attend concerts, shop and do most things that they can do in the real world.

Not only Fortnite, but even games like Minecraft and Roblox are in the hopes of creating an ecosystem that supports a full Metaverse in the future. VRChat, a game which allows you to create an avatar and chat with other players, also hopes to chime in into this trend. Digital items that are being sold as NFTs (What are NFTs?) can be worn by your avatar in specific games, and we are already seeing this pick up pace in the recent months. For example:

This is just the beginning and it is interesting to see Fortnite’s role in laying the foundation for what’s to come — with its in-game concerts, screening of Film Trailers and Clips (Star Wars) and skins from multi-million dollar franchises.

When can we expect the Metaverse? ⏰

Although Epic Games is doing all it can to pursue the idea, they are still a long way from the end goal. Fortnite has managed to change the way people interact with each other while gaming — attending concerts, creating levels together, hanging at the Party Royale island and much more. As Tim Sweeney told VentureBeat, the Metaverse will be a linear evolution rather than a “massive, sudden disruption.”

Ultimately, Fortnite is just Fortnite for now. Every licensing deal that has taken place in the game is essentially for the Battle Royale mode than anything else. The cosmetic items let you break materials in different ways, fly into battle uniquely or emote on your enemies, but it is just a Battle Royale for now, directly in competition with Warzone, PUBG etc.

I’m not a gamer, how does the Metaverse affect me? 🧐

Let’s step away from Epic Games for a moment, which is primarily a Gaming company, and focus on products that you might be using on a day to day basis.

Two major companies whose tools you might be using daily are actively pursuing the Metaverse and its creation — Facebook and Google. Both the companies have made significant investments in cloud computing and virtual reality companies in the expectancy of a Metaverse.

Deep dive into Facebook’s Approach 🧠

A few years ago, Mark Zuckerberg got convinced that a virtual world will be the future. Due to this, Facebook bought the VR company Oculus in 2014 and he was quoted saying:

“Imagine enjoying a court side seat at a game, studying in a classroom of students and teachers all over the world or consulting with a doctor face-to-face just by putting on goggles in your home. This is really a new communication platform. By feeling truly present, you can share unbounded spaces and experiences with the people in your life. Imagine sharing not just moments with your friends online, but entire experiences and adventures.”

The hardware from Oculus can be leveraged by Facebook to support its software allowing them to sell anything possible in a virtual world — movie tickets, concert tickets, clothes, live sports tickets, games, and ad spaces.

Circling back to gaming and the topic at hand — in conclusion, Epic Games certainly has the right arsenal of tools to create the perfect Metaverse and I believe it’ll be the first gaming company to do so. The tools that’ll help them do this:

$28.7 billion valuation

10 million daily active users on Fortnite

Epic Game Store that has become a leading storefront in little time

The Unreal Engine, the engine that is used by almost every gaming developer in the world and now even big production companies such as Disney.