Tag: fortnite

‘Fortnite’ is the paradise of racists who use AI while the lack of moderation becomes evident

Being racist in 2024 (and this includes clichéd phrases like “I’m not racist, but”) means being far behind in history. Nevertheless, even if they are just a few, they shout a lot and make us believe they are a legion.

Being racist in 2024 (and here come worn-out formulas like “I’m not racist but”) is being very behind in history. And yet, even if they are just a few, they shout a lot and make us believe they are legion. Now they have dedicated themselves to filling ‘Fortnite’ with their nonsense, with a double twist that makes it even more painful: using artificial intelligence… and making money from it.

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Opening watermelons in Fortnite

As soon as you start taking a look at the content created by users, you will realize not only that there is an insane amount of AI-generated content, but also that it is represented by the most offensive images possible of fat men in three dimensions created by MidJourney and so racialized that they resemble those 60s playing cards of ‘Families of 7 countries’. Stereotypes that have become as worn out as the cards themselves but that some are not willing to let die.

And of course, what happens happens: thousands of people play every day in maps where there are Arab sheiks about to blow themselves up with a bomb belt, Mexican men with a mariachi hat eating a giant taco, African Americans eating chicken or particularly thin African children. Surprisingly, no one in ‘Fortnite’, a game for the whole family that is especially played by children, has done anything to moderate this content.

As the game has grown (and become much more than just ‘Battle Royale’), so has its player base: it is undoubtedly one of the titles that have marked the modern history of video games. And to reward its community, Epic has decided to pay everyone who creates their own successful creations. And this has led, of course, to the proliferation of artificial intelligence, cyber trash, and zero moderation in this regard (at least until they have been called out on it). At Epic, they are focused on something else and the content is so massive that without large-scale hiring, they can’t do anything.

The worst part is not that, but that this racism created by AI has become a trend. For example, the map that started it all, Jamaica Zonewars, had 35,000 active users almost a month ago, and, of course, everyone has tried to copy it with all kinds of racist and terrible content. On the other hand, at Epic, after the controversy broke out, they have already deleted a good number of these islands created by AI, and they claim that they will continue to do so in order to prevent ‘Fortnite’ from being the last stronghold of a handful of people who still believe that memes from 2005 are still funny now.

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We couldn’t imagine the real success of ‘Fortnite’, but this fact can give you an idea

People have played more ‘Fortnite’ than – mind you – ‘GTA V,’ ‘Roblox,’ ‘Call of Duty,’ and ‘EA Sports FC 24’… combined.

For many people, ‘Fortnite’ has taken over social media. They communicate through ‘Fortnite’, play in ‘Fortnite’, live in ‘Fortnite’. And we have no idea to what extent it has become the game that encapsulates an entire generation. Yes, we can go to specific moments, but there is always time to shoot a few shots. And year after year, it is not suffering the typical decline of this type of titles.

Everyone playing Fortnite

To give you an idea, data extracted from Xbox and PlayStation consoles shows that people have played more ‘Fortnite’ than -get this- ‘GTA V’, ‘Roblox’, ‘Call of Duty’, and ‘EA Sports FC 24’… combined. In fact, it has even gained popularity in the last two months after introducing the LEGO version, its ‘Fortnite Festival’, and ‘Rocket Racing’. Everyone plays the Epic Games’ game, it’s a fact.

In November, total hours in ‘Fortnite’ increased by 150%. In December, an additional 9%. To put it in understandable numbers, a total of 1.6 billion hours… just in November. The equivalent of -get this- 182,648 years. Quite something. In fact, Epic has become the number one developer in terms of gaming hours, ahead of any other.

And it has only lacked one game. Mostly because since ‘Fortnite’, in 2017, it hasn’t released anything other than versions of the same game and countless seasons. One of them, by the way, will arrive in 2024 and will be completely original, causing another surge of players who want to see where to land. It is possible that ‘Fortnite’ will become even bigger, especially considering that it is apparently free. And I don’t know if we are ready to see such a hegemony.

The protagonist of one of the most awarded games of 2023 arrives at Dead By Daylight

The protagonist of one of the most awarded games of 2023 arrives at Dead By Daylight, seeking to light the way for the survivors.

There is a certain joke that Fortnite has too many collaborations. It is indeed the video game with the most collaborations. That doesn’t mean it’s not common among games as a service. And that other popular games, with a well-established fandom, even base their marketing even more on this kind of strategies. Like for example, the case of Dead By Daylight.

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In fact, Behaviour Interactive, the game developer, has just announced which will be the next character they will add in a collaboration with the game. It’s Alan Wake, the writer protagonist of the homonymous franchise by Remedy Entertainment. Joining the roster of Dead By Daylight characters as a survivor, he brings with him all his knowledge about horror that he accumulated in his own games. And by that we mean that it is a game heavily based on light.

In this asymmetric multiplayer, our favorite fiction writer will have three powers: Champion of Light, Blessing: Illumination, and Deadline. The first one gives him more speed when illuminating the path with a flashlight, the second one creates a totem that allows all players to see the auras of generators and chests, and the last one increases the number of skill checks while healing survivors or repairing generators but reduces the penalty by 50% when injured.

In addition, no one can say that this is not the Alan Wake they know. To recreate him in the game, they have relied on the two actors who bring him to life: Ikka Villi, on whom his appearance is based, and Matthew Porretta, who lends his voice. As they did previously in another collaboration of Alan Wake, this time with the main culprit of these, Fortnite.

Alan Wake will arrive today to the test servers of Dead by Daylight on its Steam version. We will still have to wait a little longer for it to arrive on the official servers, so they can ensure that everything is correct in this herald of light. But when that moment comes, it will also be playable on PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Nintendo Switch, Xbox One, Xbox Series S, and Xbox Series X.

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Fortnite on the Steam Deck? Tim Sweeney says no, although there is a but.

“Fortnite on the Steam Deck? Tim Sweeney says no, but there’s a catch; although that catch doesn’t make much sense, and let’s break it down.”

Fortnite is one of the most popular games in the world and yet, it seems to be locked in its own ecosystem. Although it can be played on mobile devices, it is heavily restricted to appear on them. And while its home is on computers, it also seems to have many issues reaching outside of the Epic store itself. Although, no matter what the CEO of the company says, perhaps all of this is not always the fault of others.

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In an interview with The Verge, Epic CEO Tim Sweeney was asked why Fortnite was not coming to the Steam Deck. Especially considering that they had even gone to court to get their game to appear on mobile devices without any interference from Google. Sweeney’s response has been concise, but not clear: “if we only had a few more programmers… I wish they had tens of millions of users, at which point it would make sense to support it”. A spurious argument that, moreover, is as easy to dismantle as almost everything Sweeney says in the interview.

On one hand, it states that it is a human problem. They don’t have enough programmers. The reality is that, only during 2023, Epic has laid off 830 employees. Around 16% of its workforce. If they hadn’t laid them off, it doesn’t seem like not having enough programmers could be a problem.

On the other hand, he claims that the problem is the installed base of Steam Decks. While he does not give a clear answer to the question, which in itself shows that he is not interested in answering, what he wants to convey here is that Fortnite is not profitable on Steam Deck because it would be very expensive to develop. Which has already been proven to be a lie. First, because both Valve and Epic stated in November 2021 that Epic’s proprietary anti-cheat should be something easy to solve. Second, because even if they don’t want to release Fortnite on Steam, third-party applications allow you to install the Epic Games Launcher on the Steam Deck. Demonstrating that they don’t do it for other kinds of interests.

What are those interests? Tim Sweeney wants to be the Caesar instead of the Caesar. His problem is that he doesn’t want to publish his games on the competition’s store. Which is legitimate, but it makes it absurd, and deeply insulting, that he answers in that way. Because the answer is clear. Fortnite is not possible on Steam Deck because that would make Valve’s device more attractive, and that is something that Tim Sweeney, and his interest in replacing Steam with the Epic Games Store as the ultimate game store, cannot allow.

And sometimes, the most convoluted answers are the most revealing ones.

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The future of ‘Guitar Hero’ and ‘Rock Band’ hinged on… ‘Fortnite’

‘Fortnite’, the place where potentially anything can and does happen, from a world made of LEGO to the appearance of Peter Griffin fighting the Ninja Turtles. And, now, a rehearsal place for your rock band.

Back in the day, Facebook aimed to be a convergence of everything within its own page: audiovisual entertainment, video games, social network, and news source. It never came close to achieving it as much as, inadvertently, ‘Fortnite‘ did—the place where potentially anything can happen and, indeed, it does, from a world made with LEGO to the appearance of Peter Griffin battling the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. And now, a rehearsal space for your rock band.

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I wanna rock and roll all night

And it’s that ‘Fortnite’ has launched a new mode called Fortnite Festival, which is basically a reintroduction of the ‘Guitar Hero‘ and ‘Rock Band’ system eight years after their last titles (‘Rock Band 4’ and ‘Guitar Hero Live’) were released. In fact, Epic has developed this new game mode in collaboration with Harmonix, aiming to let players perform on the main stage with their friends.

Not only will you have to hit the right buttons, but you’ll also be able to improvise over songs like ‘Bad Romance,’ ‘Take My Breath,’ or ‘Thunder,’ which can be purchased with V-Bucks (specifically 500 each). You can compete to see who plays better, form a group and climb up the leaderboards, improvise, and mix famous tracks together. Essentially, it’s reminiscent of better gaming times.

And, on top of that, you can get The Weeknd‘s skin if, for some reason, you were eager to have him on your team. Apart from his songs, you’ll also have tracks from Nine Inch Nails, The Cranberries, Greta Van Fleet, The Killers, or Billie Eilish, among a few others. You might think, “But wasn’t this a shooting game?” Well, “was” is the key word here: ‘Fortnite’ is a place where you can do whatever you want and dive into the anarchy of intellectual properties colliding. It’s the best time in history to be an unwavering fan.

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Why making a muscular Peter Griffin in ‘Fortnite’ is a mistake

If the point of the game is that different intellectual properties can fight each other, why make one of them so absolutely different from what we are used to seeing?

By now, ‘Fortnite‘ is not so much a video game as it is one of those childhood games where we’d mix Batman with The Powerpuff Girls and Super Mario with the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. The number of available skins in the game is countless. However, after adding dozens of characters, from Eleven from ‘Stranger Things’ to Eminem, they’ve now taken a small misstep by introducing Peter Griffin.

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Pow, right in the kisser

The protagonist from ‘Family Guy’ has appeared in the game alongside Solid Snake, Freezer, and Cell from ‘Dragon Ball,’ or even The Weeknd, but there’s something odd about him: he’s absolutely muscular. And it’s not like the game doesn’t give a reason for it. In a video, we see how Meowscles brings him an expired sorbet from 2021 which, upon eating, makes him very strong. However, as justified as it might be, it’s a mistake.

Even if Seth McFarlane (or whoever manages his properties now) has agreed to modify the character to have him shooting in the new chapter of ‘Fortnite,’ the truth is that something doesn’t quite fit. If the game’s charm lies in different intellectual properties battling each other, why make one of them so utterly different from what we’re used to seeing?

Are they afraid there might be a non-muscular person on the island? Why can’t Peter Griffin have more original moves? It’s ‘Family Guy,’ and anything can happen, after all. The problem, in fact, isn’t with the animated protagonist but with giving free rein to change any characters they want to fit into the game’s canon. We’ve only had seven years of ‘Fortnite‘ (even though it feels like three decades), and there’s still a lot ahead: allowing this kind of digression isn’t a good idea if we don’t want to end up seeing real absurdities.

By the way, Epic has claimed they’re still in talks with Nintendo, but with no luck whatsoever, to bring Mario characters into ‘Fortnite.’ Obviously, they’ll never say yes, given the current situation. And they won’t be the only ones.

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Fortnite Chapter 5 brings more content than ever – find out here!

Fortnite Chapter 5 brings more content than ever: discover it here! We have made a summary of everything it includes, and why you are interested

Fortnite is determined to be the game where you never have to play another video game again. Not in the sense that you wouldn’t want to play others, but that you wouldn’t have to leave one specific game to enjoy everything you desire. While Roblox has a head start of many years, it seems to lack a significant impact outside the younger audience and doesn’t receive much positive press. That’s unlikely to be a problem for Fortnite Chapter 5.

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Following the Big Bang event and the remarkable Chapter 4, Epic Games has released Chapter 5, which has brought an absolutely insane amount of content. The most radical changes, related to gameplay, include the ability to use riot shields, a massive update to the movement system — something that will have a huge impact on the game as many players create obstacle courses within it — and the ability to board trains that travel throughout the map. These significant changes are expected to radically alter how Fortnite is played.

There’s more to come with Chapter 5. Additionally, the Battle Pass includes two exceptional guests: Peter Griffin from the famous animated series Family Guy and Solid Snake, the protagonist of the Metal Gear Solid franchise.

Moreover, the big announcement for Chapter 5 is that Fortnite will expand like never before. However, we’ll still have to wait a few days for this. On December 7th, LEGO Fortnite will arrive, a construction game licensed by LEGO. On December 8th, Rocket Racing, an arcade-style racing game created by Psyonix, the makers of Rocket League, will be released. And on December 9th, Fortnite Festival will launch, a rhythm game from the creators of Rock Band that, to start, has been announced with the presence of Eminem.

Although we’ll have to wait until the end of the week to see everything included in this Chapter 5, it seems Epic has decided to expand their popular game more than ever and invite us to never leave its confines. Whether they achieve this with all these upcoming novelties remains to be seen.

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Better shots than retweets: 'Fortnite' is now worth more than Twitter

What would you do if you had $44 billion left over? Elon Musk seems to have it clear: he bought Twitter so he could play with it.

The day Elon Musk walked into Twitter’s offices with a sink in his hands marked the beginning of the infamy that has led to the downfall of the once indispensable social network as a series of blunders, from the removal of the circles to the placement of a giant illuminated ‘X’ that polluted the luminosity of the rest of San Francisco. And all of this… only to end up losing an enormous amount of money.

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An epic investment

What would you do if you had an extra $44 billion? Elon Musk seems to have known exactly what to do: he bought Twitter so he could play with it. A year later, it is estimated that the social network is worth between 50% and 90% less (i.e., between $4 billion and $19 billion). The truth probably lies in the middle, around $15 billion, which is less than the current value of Epic Games, the developer of ‘Fortnite.

And after a financing round where they raised -attention- an additional $1.78 billion, right now it’s worth $17.3 billion (and rising). So, if Musk, instead of wanting to argue, had wanted to shoot to vent, he might have made one of the best investments in history.

223 million people use ‘Fortnite’ monthly compared to the 528 million who do the same on Twitter. However, Twitter Blue can’t compete, not by a long shot, in popularity with Epic’s microtransactions. Perhaps in the future, the strategy of the world’s richest person will succeed, and we’ll be using the social network of the former little bird to access our bank and do everything he wants us to do, but it doesn’t seem likely.

On the other hand, ‘Fortnite’ was not, like other pandemic games (eh, ‘Fall Guys’?), a one-day wonder, and even now, it is at its peak of popularity. The Gen Z throwing the floss dance in the face of the old folks. We brought it upon ourselves, truth be told.

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How Google could end up losing its credibility because of ‘Fortnite’

Now, the developer has taken Google to court after the one it had with Tim Cook’s company and the most interesting thing has not been its future, but rather checking the internal mess of the former search engine (and current monopoly).

Let’s quickly summarize what has happened so far to get you up to speed, like a sort of “Previously on” because this story is quite something. First, ‘Fortnite‘ appeared as just another app in the App Store and Play Store. Then, when Epic started offering better rates for purchasing V-Bucks, its in-game currency, on the company’s own website, both Google and Apple abruptly removed it from their stores. Now, the developer has taken Google to court following the one they had with Tim Cook’s company. The most interesting aspect hasn’t been the outcome itself, but rather observing the internal chaos within the once-search engine (now a current monopoly).

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Seeking to establish a presence on Google

And it turns out that Epic has shown, without breaking a sweat, that Google has destroyed evidence in the trial, erased chats, and even forced employees to hide their conversations in case they said anything legally sensitive. In fact, they’ve even noticed that Google’s chat system includes a tool that allows employees not to save conversation history.

And you might say, “So what?” Well, doing this while they’re in court because of ‘Fortnite’ doesn’t look good at all. They could have saved all the chats to prove they have nothing to hide, but surprise, surprise, they didn’t. In fact, Google‘s Information Manager couldn’t even guarantee that these deleted conversations wouldn’t have served as evidence or contradicted the trial testimonies.

The reason Google has given is, at best, feeble: “It was that way by default.” A bit like Homer Simpson saying, “It was my first day.” In fact, from the chats that were indeed saved, some requested not to save them due to “the sensitivity of the legal department these days :).” Margaret Lam, head of platform and ecosystem strategy for Android, repeatedly insisted that employees should not save chats if they wanted to attend meetings with her.

All very healthy and normal, but it gets worse: the company’s CEO was actually messing up by not saving his chats and asking people in his meetings to turn off automatic saving. If Epic already seemed like the winner of the trial, now it would take a miracle for Goliath to win against David. It wouldn’t have been so hard to do things right from the beginning.

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Playing Fortnite will allow you to vote at The Game Awards 2023

For the promotion of the TGA, Geoff Keighley has decided to join forces with Epic Games and Fortnite.

“The year is on its way to conclusion, and in the world of video games, this can only mean one thing: the celebration of The Game Awards. On December 8, Geoff Keighley will announce the fortunate winners of awards such as the GOTY 2023. We already know that Keighley enjoys a good publicity stunt, so for the promotion of TGA, he has decided to join forces with Epic Games.

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In addition to giving us free games every month, Epic Games has once again showcased its generosity with a new Fortnite campaign that includes The Game Awards as protagonists. Starting now, Battle Royale players can travel to a new island called ‘The Game Awards Vote in Fortnite‘ using the code 0853-1358-8532.

Through a hub, players will travel to the nominated islands, which total 10 in number. From there, you can vote for your favorite island in the Fortnite Island of the Year category. However, this doesn’t mean you can make ALL the votes from Fortnite (we wish). In this campaign, you can only choose the best island created by the community.

Geoff Keighley also makes an appearance at the event with his own skin. Through it, we can collect The Game Awards statuettes and thus, obtain an XP booster. However, we cannot obtain this skin, at least for the time being. On the other hand, Keighley has also hinted at the possibility that we may be able to watch future editions of The Game Awards within Fortnite.

Back to the origins with Fortnite OG

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Believe it or not, Fortnite has been with us for over 6 years and has not lost any of its strength. The quintessential Battle Royale presented update 27.00 at the beginning of November and has taken the opportunity to return to its origins with Fortnite OG. This chapter, which will only last a month, brings back the original map on which the game was launched in 2017 and a new skin for Eleven (Stranger Things), among many other things.