Speaker 1: Get in touch with technology with tech Stuff from how
Speaker 1: stuff Works dot com. Hey there, and welcome to tech Stuff.
Speaker 1: I'm your host, Jonathan Strickland. I'm an executive producer with
Speaker 1: I Heart Radio and How Stuff Works and I love
Speaker 1: all things tech. And you know what, many video games
Speaker 1: never really rise to a level of notoriety that gets
Speaker 1: them attention outside of gaming circles, you know, into the
Speaker 1: main stream. But once in a while, a video game
Speaker 1: does do that. It manages to burst free of its
Speaker 1: confines and then next thing, you know, everyone knows about it,
Speaker 1: or at least recognizes little elements that are common to
Speaker 1: that video game. So games like Pac Man or Donkey Kong,
Speaker 1: lots of people know about those. Well. Recently, the video
Speaker 1: game Fortnite has managed to do this and burst out
Speaker 1: of those small niche adiences of video gamers. Millions of
Speaker 1: people play Fortnite. Millions of people will watch other people
Speaker 1: play Fortnite, either in tournaments or in live stream sessions
Speaker 1: that sort of thing. There are hundreds of videos of
Speaker 1: people talking about the game or doing some of the
Speaker 1: notable dances that are featured in the game. Epic Games,
Speaker 1: which developed and published Fortnite, made three billion dollars in
Speaker 1: revenue in eighteen, largely because of that game. There are
Speaker 1: a lot of stories about Fortnite, some of which criticize
Speaker 1: how the game seemingly lifts elements from other games and
Speaker 1: pop culture memes without compensation or credit. But where did
Speaker 1: this game come from and how did it become so
Speaker 1: popular so quickly? Well, I'm going to do my best
Speaker 1: not to turn this into an episode that's secretly about
Speaker 1: Epic Games, the company that aches and publishes Fortnite, but
Speaker 1: it would be a good idea to get a quick
Speaker 1: rundown of that studio and what was going on when
Speaker 1: the company first announced development on Fortnite. So here's the
Speaker 1: super quick version of Epic games history. Maybe in the
Speaker 1: future I'll do a full episode about Epic Games and
Speaker 1: will really dive into the details. But back in a
Speaker 1: college student named Tim Sweeney launched a computing consulting business
Speaker 1: called Potomac Computer Systems. It became clear that the business
Speaker 1: was going to require more work and time than Sweeney
Speaker 1: could dedicate to it while also doing his college studies,
Speaker 1: So around that same time he also got interested in
Speaker 1: developing games, and he created a somewhat primitive computer game
Speaker 1: called z z T. It was a simple top down
Speaker 1: computer RPG style game with as key art, and he
Speaker 1: released this game under that Potomac computer or system's company name.
Speaker 1: But Sweeney also released some code that made it possible
Speaker 1: for gamers to take this game and modify it themselves.
Speaker 1: And word quickly spread throughout the old computer bulletin board
Speaker 1: system communities, and the game was a modest hit. It
Speaker 1: actually did fairly well. The success inspired Sweeney to pursue
Speaker 1: game development on a larger scale within the shareware community.
Speaker 1: Shareware is a method of distribution in which a developer
Speaker 1: allows some portion of their work to be distributed freely
Speaker 1: as much as people like. So you can make copies,
Speaker 1: you can give them to your friends, and there's no penalty.
Speaker 1: There's nothing wrong about that. Typically this software has some
Speaker 1: sort of limit built into it, so, for example, a
Speaker 1: shareware game might allow you to play the first level
Speaker 1: of that game for free, but then to get beyond
Speaker 1: this limitation, you would actually have to buy the full game. Well,
Speaker 1: Sweeney set out to create his own shareware company. He
Speaker 1: also decided they needed a better name, and so he
Speaker 1: chose Epic Mega Games, and he later admitted that he
Speaker 1: chose that name, in part because it made people think
Speaker 1: his company was a lot larger than just a single
Speaker 1: person working out of his parents house. Sweeney began to
Speaker 1: form relationships and work with other developers as well, like
Speaker 1: Cliff Blazinski sometimes known as Cliffy B. He was another
Speaker 1: young video game enthusiast who was eager to get into
Speaker 1: that industry. Um he was in high school when he
Speaker 1: first started to right to Sweeney and work with him.
Speaker 1: The company would release several games over the next couple
Speaker 1: of years, including a video pinball game and a game
Speaker 1: called jazz Jack Rabbit that ended up being very popular.
Speaker 1: But things really picked up in Now This was Right
Speaker 1: at the Dawn, a video game graphics cards, three D
Speaker 1: game design, and first person shooters like Castle, Wolfin's Line
Speaker 1: and Doom, both of which were from ID Software. Sweeney
Speaker 1: and his team decided to develop their own game engine
Speaker 1: and three D first person shooter, a game they called
Speaker 1: it Unreal. It was an incredibly ambitious project, and they
Speaker 1: released the game and the game engine in after several
Speaker 1: years of development. The Unreal engine was an industry triumph,
Speaker 1: easily matching up against the more seasoned id's Quake two
Speaker 1: engine and the Unreal Engine would become one of the
Speaker 1: standard game engines used throughout the industry. It's cemented Epic
Speaker 1: Games as a quote unquote real video game company. Epic
Speaker 1: would go on to release games like the Gears of
Speaker 1: War franchise, which was incredibly successful and the company did
Speaker 1: well in the two thousand's. Now this brings us up
Speaker 1: rapidly as we skip over a lot of details to
Speaker 1: two thousand eleven and the start of the story around
Speaker 1: Fortnite itself. In two thousand eleven, Epic is wrapping up
Speaker 1: on its own Epic trilogy, which has since grown beyond
Speaker 1: three games, and the company was really celebrating they had
Speaker 1: just finished Gears of War three. The first Gears of
Speaker 1: War game was for the Xbox three sixty back in
Speaker 1: two thousand six. Gears of War two followed in two
Speaker 1: thousand eight, and Gears of War three finally came out
Speaker 1: in two thousand eleven. The trilogy follows a human military
Speaker 1: force fighting off an alien invasion and centers around a
Speaker 1: protagonist named Marcus Phoenix, and Part three wrapped up Phoenix's storyline,
Speaker 1: and so in order to create a sense of closure
Speaker 1: and transition, the company held a game jam now, a
Speaker 1: game jam is like a hackathon. Developers team up with
Speaker 1: each other. Sometimes they work with people that they've never
Speaker 1: worked with directly before. Sometimes they'll take on new roles
Speaker 1: on the team that they normally wouldn't on a project,
Speaker 1: So a programmer might become the art director for a
Speaker 1: game jam. Their goal is just to create a fun
Speaker 1: game within a certain amount of time, such as forty
Speaker 1: eight or seventy two hours. They have to come up
Speaker 1: with a concept developed the gameplay, the mechanics, the art,
Speaker 1: the music, everything else, and then they show it off
Speaker 1: to each other and it helps inspire creativity and outside
Speaker 1: the box thinking and gives developers a chance to experiment.
Speaker 1: Sometimes it can create the earliest version of a future game.
Speaker 1: A short time after this game jam, some of the
Speaker 1: Epic team began talking about a possible future game that
Speaker 1: would become Fortnite. The Fortnite itself wasn't actually spawned directly
Speaker 1: from the game jam. It wasn't one of the games
Speaker 1: developed during that uh that that project, but the experience
Speaker 1: of the game jam lad the team to talk about
Speaker 1: possibilities now. The team imagined a game in which players
Speaker 1: would control a human survivor of a zombie apocalypse, and
Speaker 1: this would be a multiplayer game, so they could team
Speaker 1: up with other players and increase their odds of survival.
Speaker 1: They would traverse a world ruined by this apocalypse, and
Speaker 1: they would other resources, scavenging and harvesting them from stuff
Speaker 1: like trees or rocks or houses or whatever. Then they
Speaker 1: could use that material to construct bases to protect themselves
Speaker 1: from zombie hordes which would spawn at night. It was
Speaker 1: sort of combining elements of several other games that already existed,
Speaker 1: stuff like Minecraft and Left for Dead. Producers have also
Speaker 1: cited the game Terraria as one of the big influences
Speaker 1: in their early development. The goal was to create a
Speaker 1: survival building game and marry it to a third person
Speaker 1: or a first person shooter game, and make sure that
Speaker 1: both of those elements were designed well and fun to play.
Speaker 1: The view of the team was that most games, generally
Speaker 1: in that space, we're good at one thing but not
Speaker 1: the other thing. So building games were really good at building,
Speaker 1: but weren't so great at combat. Combat games were great
Speaker 1: at combat but not so good at building. They wanted
Speaker 1: the best of both. Now, there's no definitive source that
Speaker 1: I could find about when Fortnite became an ef shoal project,
Speaker 1: but it sounds like there were serious discussions around this
Speaker 1: idea starting sometime in August two eleven. Initially, the thought
Speaker 1: was to create a game with a dark, gritty tone,
Speaker 1: really you know, kind of of of foreboding art style,
Speaker 1: But the team decided that they wanted something that would
Speaker 1: come across more timeless, not to mention, a style that
Speaker 1: wouldn't put as heavy a strain on computer processing power
Speaker 1: or development time. If you make it more realistic, you've
Speaker 1: got to figure all that stuff out, so they opted
Speaker 1: for a brighter, more cartoonish approach. The name Fortnite came
Speaker 1: out of an email thread where they were just debating
Speaker 1: on what they should name this game. Since the goal
Speaker 1: was to survive a zombie attack each night by building
Speaker 1: a protective base. Someone suggested Fortnight as a possibility, and
Speaker 1: it clicked, and they decided to announce the game just
Speaker 1: a few months later after they had decided to actually
Speaker 1: make it. This would be in December two thou eleven,
Speaker 1: at the Video Game Awards show on on Spike TV.
Speaker 1: Well at that point, the team had only been actively
Speaker 1: working on the game development for three weeks. There was
Speaker 1: no game yet. Cliff Blazynski, now the design director at Epic,
Speaker 1: took the stage for the reveal. The announcement included a
Speaker 1: video showing off the idea for this game, with characters
Speaker 1: rushing into a town to scavenge, then heading back to
Speaker 1: build a tower base just before a group of zombies
Speaker 1: would attack. The whole thing was a cinematic It was
Speaker 1: not gameplay. There was no game to show off at
Speaker 1: that point. It was just the idea for a game.
Speaker 1: A year later, Epic would be a very different company.
Speaker 1: A three thirty million dollar investment would hand over a
Speaker 1: significant but technically minority stake of ownership of the company
Speaker 1: to a Chinese conglomerate. Game designer and self promoter. Cliff
Speaker 1: Blazynski would leave the company, and the Fortnite game would
Speaker 1: undergo some changes early in its development. I'll explain more
Speaker 1: into the second, but first, let's take a quick break
Speaker 1: to thank our sponsor. Okay, time for a quick check
Speaker 1: in with Epic Games. Circa mid two thousand and twelve,
Speaker 1: Fortnite was now well and truly in development, and the
Speaker 1: company projected a release date sometime in two thousand thirteen.
Speaker 1: The public knew about the game thanks to those two
Speaker 1: thousand eleven Video Game Awards announcements, and Cliff Lazynski was frustrated.
Speaker 1: He was finding it difficult to convince people that his
Speaker 1: ideas for new games were viable. And then you have
Speaker 1: a Chinese company called Tencent Holdings Limited make a huge
Speaker 1: deal that Epic just couldn't refuse. Ten Cent, and a
Speaker 1: press release on Epic Games as website was described as
Speaker 1: quote a leading provider of Internet and mobile and telecom
Speaker 1: munications value added services in China end quote. Today it's
Speaker 1: the world's largest gaming company, as well as a contender
Speaker 1: for one of the top social media companies in the world.
Speaker 1: Since its founding in it has had a long history
Speaker 1: of investing in other companies. It's much better known in
Speaker 1: China that is in the United States. But trust me,
Speaker 1: this company is a huge deal. It was during this
Speaker 1: time that several important people left Epic Games, among them
Speaker 1: producer Rod Ferguson. He left Epic to go work on
Speaker 1: a game called BioShock Infinite with Irrational Games, and Cliff Blazynski,
Speaker 1: who felt he had hit this creative roadblock at Epic
Speaker 1: and he wanted to try his hand at creating his
Speaker 1: own studio. That story is a pretty fascinating one in
Speaker 1: its own right, and someday I'm going to have to
Speaker 1: talk about his experiences and what happened, because it was
Speaker 1: one of those tragic stories of failure in tech that
Speaker 1: I think still sting a lot of people to this day. Anyway,
Speaker 1: their departures gave the gaming community concern about the future
Speaker 1: of Fortnite. Everyone identified these guys as being leaders. This
Speaker 1: was in a time when some game developers were very
Speaker 1: public figures like Cliffy B, and they were sometimes known
Speaker 1: for living like rock stars. Cliffy B certainly embrace that
Speaker 1: lifestyle and that portrayal, so a lot of people thought, well,
Speaker 1: without them there, what's going to happen to this game?
Speaker 1: Who is still at Epic Games that can help this
Speaker 1: project stay on track? Now, I think this is one
Speaker 1: of the big problems with the cult of personality mentality
Speaker 1: in general, not just for video games but for everything,
Speaker 1: because it tends to put all the focus on one
Speaker 1: or two rock stars, and it ignores the hard work
Speaker 1: and contributions of countless people who makes stuff possible. And
Speaker 1: so typically this means we have a unrealistic view of
Speaker 1: what's happening the people who are rock stars are in
Speaker 1: fact remarkable. For the most part, they are talented people
Speaker 1: who do a lot of work. But it still does
Speaker 1: the rest of the team a disservice to assume that
Speaker 1: if someone person leaves, the whole project's going to fall apart. Still,
Speaker 1: the departures were definitely an issue that the game development
Speaker 1: team had to take into account. Meanwhile, the three thirty
Speaker 1: million dollars that ten Cent provided to Epic gave them
Speaker 1: plenty of safety net for what the company planned to
Speaker 1: do next. While still developing games, Epic prepared to make
Speaker 1: a big shift in how it generated revenue. One of
Speaker 1: the most lucrative assets the company had was its Unreal
Speaker 1: Games Engine, which many other developers would rely upon when
Speaker 1: they were building out their own games. Traditionally, a company
Speaker 1: would have to pay a subscribe shin fee for the
Speaker 1: use of the Unreal Engine. Epic released Unreal Engine four
Speaker 1: in March two thousand fourteen, and a year later, Epic
Speaker 1: made it free to download. The plan was to step
Speaker 1: away from focusing only on triple A titles from big
Speaker 1: publishers and to leverage the growing community of smaller developers.
Speaker 1: The new revenue generating strategy was a royalties agreement, so
Speaker 1: instead of a set monthly subscription fee, companies would pay
Speaker 1: out five percent of royalties for any commercial application of
Speaker 1: the Unreal game engine that earned more than three thousand
Speaker 1: dollars per quarter. So if your project didn't earn at
Speaker 1: least three thousand dollars per quarter, you weren't charging anything.
Speaker 1: This was part of a major shift in the video
Speaker 1: game industry as a whole. Back to Fortnite, it didn't
Speaker 1: take long into the development process for the designers to
Speaker 1: realize that they needed more elements to make the game
Speaker 1: they wanted to create. Originally, they thought about making a
Speaker 1: building game and releasing it super fast, But while testing
Speaker 1: and building the game, they realized that they needed some
Speaker 1: more components to make the game fun. To play an
Speaker 1: important element in any video game, As it turns out,
Speaker 1: some people tend to forget that. During the development process,
Speaker 1: they decided they needed some stuff like progression, in which
Speaker 1: players are rewarded for doing well in the game, maybe
Speaker 1: a skill tree, or being able to improve items and equipment.
Speaker 1: The game had a sort of RPG component to it,
Speaker 1: and so the company began to seek out developers who
Speaker 1: had worked in that space because they didn't have expertise
Speaker 1: in RPGs and they wanted to find people who could
Speaker 1: contribute to the game's development. With that in mind, and
Speaker 1: the release of Unreal Engine four changed things for the
Speaker 1: development team as well. Initially they had been using Unreal
Speaker 1: Engine three. They chose to abandon that and go with
Speaker 1: the latest version of the game engine, which meant some
Speaker 1: of that early work needed to go as well. They
Speaker 1: had borrowed a lot of assets from a lot of
Speaker 1: their earlier games games like the Gears of War franchise,
Speaker 1: while all of that needed to be tossed aside, they
Speaker 1: had to redevelop things. All of this meant the game
Speaker 1: was taking longer to finish than the team had initially planned.
Speaker 1: One of the big game elements that emerged during this
Speaker 1: turmoil was the actual building mechanic in the game. Initially,
Speaker 1: the idea was that building structures in the game should
Speaker 1: include some sort of mini game or extended activity, such
Speaker 1: as maybe just standing in place and holding down a
Speaker 1: button as the structure goes up. So imagine that you're
Speaker 1: trying to build a wall, and you start, you pick
Speaker 1: the wall from your list of options, and you see
Speaker 1: an outline on your screen, you place the outline where
Speaker 1: you want to go, and then you hold down a
Speaker 1: button while this wall starts to assemble. The team figured
Speaker 1: out this wasn't very much fun and it was antithetical
Speaker 1: to the fast pace of a shooter. If you have
Speaker 1: a fast action game, you can't have your back turned
Speaker 1: to all the action and try to build a wall.
Speaker 1: So the decision was made that game characters would have
Speaker 1: schematics that would allow them to build certain structures, and
Speaker 1: all they would have to do is select the appropriate
Speaker 1: schematic and the location for the build, and then hit
Speaker 1: a button and that was it. It would just build itself.
Speaker 1: The game would construct the structure for you, assuming that
Speaker 1: you had the raw materials necessary to build whatever it
Speaker 1: was you wanted to build. You meanwhile, could run along
Speaker 1: and you could build the next section, or shoot enemy
Speaker 1: players or actually, at that time, it wasn't even enemy players.
Speaker 1: It was uh enemy AI because it was a p
Speaker 1: v or player versus environment game, so players could spend
Speaker 1: less time building individual components like a section of a
Speaker 1: floor or a wall, and they could build entire bases
Speaker 1: very quickly, like within a minute or so. Those environments
Speaker 1: were also destructible. The pre existing and vironments were destructible.
Speaker 1: The stuff that players built were destructible, So anything that
Speaker 1: you saw in the game, you could, in theory breakdown
Speaker 1: or it could be destroyed by the enemy forces attacking you.
Speaker 1: Players would harvest resources from structures, so you could run
Speaker 1: up to a house and just start whacking at it
Speaker 1: with like a pick axe and start taking materials. That way,
Speaker 1: enemies can knock structures down, and that Bick needed a
Speaker 1: lot of talent to work on the game to create
Speaker 1: all the structures and elements in those destructible environments. So
Speaker 1: if you thought, well, we're gonna have a house here,
Speaker 1: what sort of stuff goes in the house? Bookshelves, couches, television's, radios, microwaves, refrigerators, stoves,
Speaker 1: all these sort of things were assets that had to
Speaker 1: be built in the game, so they started hiring people
Speaker 1: to build those assets. As this was happening, the designers
Speaker 1: began to shape the game to make it more cartoonish
Speaker 1: and the Fortnite aesthetic began to emerge. Designers began to
Speaker 1: create progression strategies for tools in the game game and
Speaker 1: incorporated more science fiction elements into the design, and the
Speaker 1: general philosophy was that no idea would be outright denied,
Speaker 1: but the team would deliberate on which elements should receive
Speaker 1: attention first, and the plan was to continue this process
Speaker 1: once the game hit release, it would get updates for
Speaker 1: as long as people were playing the game. The developers
Speaker 1: would listen to the community of players, and the community
Speaker 1: would tell the developers which elements they should focus on next,
Speaker 1: and they would provide more content. That was the plan
Speaker 1: well from the earlier stages of development. The plan was
Speaker 1: to make the game an ongoing projects, so this was
Speaker 1: not something new. This was something they had thought about
Speaker 1: for a while. In fact, there were announcements that Cliffy
Speaker 1: b had made before he left the company about how
Speaker 1: the company was going to act as kind of like
Speaker 1: a dungeon master or game master for role playing game.
Speaker 1: They would create new scenarios, tools, monsters, challenges, that kind
Speaker 1: of stuff for the community. All that was decided on
Speaker 1: while the game was still being made. The Epic team
Speaker 1: in North Carolina was in charge of the project, but
Speaker 1: they also worked with satellite offices in Seattle and Poland
Speaker 1: to bring it all together. I watched a great video
Speaker 1: from Game Informer that published in April two thousand fourteen,
Speaker 1: it's available on YouTube, so if you go and search
Speaker 1: for Fortnite and Game Informer, you should be able to
Speaker 1: pull that video up. And they mentioned that the game
Speaker 1: development team around that time was around hundred ten people.
Speaker 1: The video of gameplay in that interview literally polished. This
Speaker 1: was two thousand fourteen. Interestingly, the game wouldn't actually launch
Speaker 1: for three more years. Epic held a closed alpha test
Speaker 1: of the game on December one, two thousand fourteen. Only
Speaker 1: a few thousand people could participate, and it was meant
Speaker 1: to give Epic feedback on how gamers played the game
Speaker 1: that they had designed and what they might have to
Speaker 1: fix or tweak based upon actual people playing the game.
Speaker 1: A second closed alpha test followed in March two thousand fifteen,
Speaker 1: and the plan then was to open up a beta
Speaker 1: test in the fall, but instead Epic chose to go
Speaker 1: with a closed beta, meaning it was invitation only. They
Speaker 1: limited the participation to around fifty thousand players. It wasn't
Speaker 1: until July two thousand seventeen that gamers at large finally
Speaker 1: got their hands on Fortnite. Even then, the game was
Speaker 1: released in early access, and it wasn't the version of
Speaker 1: Fortnite that everyone tends to talk about today. I'll explain
Speaker 1: more in just a moment, but first let's take another
Speaker 1: quick break to thank our sponsor. So why did it
Speaker 1: take so long for Fortnite to launch? If that documentary
Speaker 1: back in two thousand fourteen showed gameplay that looks almost
Speaker 1: identical to what the game is today, what was taking
Speaker 1: so long? Well, part of it was that Epic was
Speaker 1: developing the game as a service. The original plan was
Speaker 1: to release Fortnite as a free to play game and
Speaker 1: then include content that players could only access if they
Speaker 1: paid for it, so you would have in game purchases.
Speaker 1: You would be able to play the game for free,
Speaker 1: but if you want some of the bells and whistles,
Speaker 1: you would have to cough up dough in order to
Speaker 1: get it. Also, Epic began work on another title around
Speaker 1: that same time called Paragon, and the two games were
Speaker 1: competing for in company talent and time and resources, so
Speaker 1: when the game did release in early access, it required
Speaker 1: would be gamers to pay for that privilege. By the way,
Speaker 1: Paragon would end up being released first, and then Epic
Speaker 1: would focus on Fortnite, and then eventually Epic would shut
Speaker 1: down Paragon. It was a project that did not did
Speaker 1: not meet the success that the company had hoped for,
Speaker 1: so the early access version of Fortnite was called Save
Speaker 1: the World. This was pretty much what the original concept
Speaker 1: had been years earlier. Players would gather resources and use
Speaker 1: those resources to build forts and then defend those forts
Speaker 1: against zombies. The company said it intended to offer Save
Speaker 1: the World up as a free to play game sometime
Speaker 1: in two thousand eighteen. This was in two thousand seventeen.
Speaker 1: Skip ahead now it's early two thousand nineteen as I
Speaker 1: record this, and it still has not happened. The basic
Speaker 1: version of Fortnite that player versus environment, Save the World
Speaker 1: version is thirty nine dollars cents for the standard version.
Speaker 1: The Deluxe edition, which contains more character models and weapons
Speaker 1: plus some other stuff, is fifty nine dollars and ninety
Speaker 1: nine cents. So one of the things Epic Games has
Speaker 1: done has create a lot of different character models, a
Speaker 1: lot of different weapons, a lot of different emotes. U uh,
Speaker 1: these various elements that allow you to customize your character
Speaker 1: to some extent, to a great extent, but it's almost
Speaker 1: like baseball cards. You have to collect them in order
Speaker 1: to be able to use them. But a different version
Speaker 1: of Fortnite did launch as free to play, and it's
Speaker 1: this version that really captured the attention of a lot
Speaker 1: of gamers. This is the famous Battle Royal mode, which
Speaker 1: Epic released in September two thousand seventeen, just a few
Speaker 1: months after Save the World entered early access. Now, if
Speaker 1: you're not familiar with Battle Royal or Battle Royal, if
Speaker 1: you prefer style games, i'll summarize. The name comes from
Speaker 1: a Japanese film called Battle Royal, in which a class
Speaker 1: of students is transported to an island and then they
Speaker 1: are forced to fight to a last man standing competition.
Speaker 1: The administrator for the competition designates certain areas on that
Speaker 1: island as being safe zones save zones, just meaning that
Speaker 1: you wouldn't automatically be killed if you were there, and
Speaker 1: other areas on the island go to becoming off limits,
Speaker 1: and if you are there when it goes off limits,
Speaker 1: they're automatically killed off. Now, if this sounds a lot
Speaker 1: like another story called Hunger Games, well it's no big
Speaker 1: surprise Hunger Games that that those books came out after
Speaker 1: Battle Royal had had come out, and they both cover
Speaker 1: very similar territory. One Brendan Green, a video game player
Speaker 1: and mod maker who uses the handle player Unknown, oversaw
Speaker 1: a new game called Player Unknowns Battlegrounds, sometimes known as
Speaker 1: pub G. This game was based off of some mods
Speaker 1: that Green had created for other games, and these mods
Speaker 1: all made a battle Royal started game mode for for
Speaker 1: these various games it created it, the games didn't natively
Speaker 1: support it, so Brendan Green built mods that allowed it
Speaker 1: to happen. And typically the way it works is that
Speaker 1: you have a map, and you have group of players
Speaker 1: who are all competing against each other. I they're solo
Speaker 1: or in teams, and they're all in different parts of
Speaker 1: the map, and a section of that map, typically designated
Speaker 1: by a circle, is the safe zone. Being outside the
Speaker 1: safe zone means you start taking damage a certain amount
Speaker 1: of damage per unit of time, and the goal is
Speaker 1: to be the last player alive at the end of
Speaker 1: the match. The game became enormously popular very quickly, despite
Speaker 1: the performance issues and bugs. People famously talked about how
Speaker 1: they would have the most incredible beast of a video
Speaker 1: game rig and still struggled to run pub G at
Speaker 1: at its highest settings. Now Epic must have been paying
Speaker 1: really close attention to how popular pub G was becoming
Speaker 1: because this was right around the same time that they
Speaker 1: were releasing the Save the World version of Fortnite, and
Speaker 1: so they launched their own Battle Royal mode in September
Speaker 1: two seventeen, and it closely resembled pub G's approach. It's
Speaker 1: incredibly similar. In fact, it was similar enough that it
Speaker 1: prompted Cheong Han Kim, who was a games developer and
Speaker 1: a businessman who had become the CEO of the pub
Speaker 1: G corporation, to criticize Epic Games and to threaten legal action,
Speaker 1: and in January two eighteen, pub G filed a lawsuit
Speaker 1: against Epic Games and then dropped it six months later,
Speaker 1: and they didn't really comment on why they dropped the case. Now.
Speaker 1: One reason Kim might have been worried about Fortnite is
Speaker 1: that pub G relies upon the Unreal Engine for its
Speaker 1: games engine, so pub G developers sometimes have to work
Speaker 1: with Epic support to implement new features for the pub
Speaker 1: G game. So the worry was that Epic might find
Speaker 1: out about pub G's plans for upcoming features, and then
Speaker 1: Epic could rush to implement similar features into Fortnite and
Speaker 1: released them before pub G could do it. Undercutting the competition.
Speaker 1: It didn't take very long for Fortnite to catch up
Speaker 1: to pub G and then to pass it in popularity.
Speaker 1: The fact that it was a free to play game
Speaker 1: gave it a big boost. Because pub G is not
Speaker 1: free to play. If you want to play pub G,
Speaker 1: you have to go and purchase the game, just like
Speaker 1: you would for a normal video game or any other
Speaker 1: most other video games. Fortnite, however, is different. You can
Speaker 1: download the Fortnite Battle Royal game for free and start
Speaker 1: playing right away, but if you want certain in game items,
Speaker 1: certain weapons, skins, characters, emotes, if you want to get
Speaker 1: a very specific dance, then you have to pay extra.
Speaker 1: You have to do that those in game purchases, and
Speaker 1: lots of people were doing that. Not only that, but
Speaker 1: Fortnite became one of the most popular games to watch
Speaker 1: someone else play, primarily through these streaming service Twitch players
Speaker 1: with handles like Tofu t f U E and Ninja
Speaker 1: rack up mill millions of viewer hours on the streaming
Speaker 1: service as they play games, and that elevated Fortnite's profile further.
Speaker 1: It also helped that Epic would open up Fortnite so
Speaker 1: that would play on other platforms Originally it was to
Speaker 1: be PC only, but then it went Mac and PC
Speaker 1: and now it's also available for consoles and mobile devices.
Speaker 1: And to be clear, pub G didn't invent Battle Royal.
Speaker 1: I don't want to make the claim that pub G
Speaker 1: created this game mode and Fortnite stole it, and the
Speaker 1: Battle Royal version and pub G and the Battle Royal
Speaker 1: version in Fortnite don't exactly play the same way, not
Speaker 1: not entirely. Fortnite is cartoonish, the physics are not nearly
Speaker 1: as realistic. It's a faster paced gameplay, this little swimmier
Speaker 1: than pub G is. And the fact that you can
Speaker 1: build stuff in Fortnite, you can construct barriers and ramps,
Speaker 1: and you can get over mountains this way. You can't
Speaker 1: do that in pub G. It creates a totally different
Speaker 1: gameplay experience than you would find in pub G or
Speaker 1: other Battle Royal games. So there are elements to Fortnite
Speaker 1: that really said it of heart. So lots of other
Speaker 1: games have also got similar Battle Royal modes, including the
Speaker 1: most recent Call of duty game Black Ops four with Blackout.
Speaker 1: So I don't want to suggest that you know pub
Speaker 1: G has a an exclusive right to the Battle Royal
Speaker 1: game Mode, but that people were criticizing Epic Games, saying,
Speaker 1: it looks to me like the game that you had
Speaker 1: promised for years and years and years wasn't doing as
Speaker 1: well as you wanted, so then you copied a game
Speaker 1: that was doing really well, and that's how you were
Speaker 1: able to turn it into a success. Whether that's true
Speaker 1: or not, you do have to admit that Fortnite is
Speaker 1: an enormous success. Also, the lawsuit between pub G and
Speaker 1: Epic Games, that's not the only legal headache that Epic
Speaker 1: has had to endure thanks to this runaway success of Fortnite.
Speaker 1: One of those things that you can purchase in the
Speaker 1: game would be an emote or an action that you
Speaker 1: can choose your character to make based upon a keystroke.
Speaker 1: So you might have emotes that are like a particular pose.
Speaker 1: But in Fortnite, the emotes that are really famous are
Speaker 1: the various dances. Epic has created animations of numerous dances,
Speaker 1: some of which were already famous memes, and therein lies
Speaker 1: the problem, well, one of the problems. The other problem
Speaker 1: is that there's some really litigious folks out there who
Speaker 1: are hoping for a meal ticket, I think, but there's
Speaker 1: fault on all sides, I would argue. So one of
Speaker 1: the dances you can purchase, at least at one time,
Speaker 1: was called Fresh, which was a nod to the source
Speaker 1: of this dance, the television show Fresh Prince of bel Air.
Speaker 1: In that show, Alfonso Ribero, who played the character at Carlton,
Speaker 1: did an iconic dance to Tom Jones's song It's not Unusual.
Speaker 1: Fortnite didn't lift the song, but it did lift the dance,
Speaker 1: and Alfonso has filed a lawsuit against the company, claiming
Speaker 1: they're capitalizing on his celebrity and didn't give him any
Speaker 1: credit or compensation. Actor Donald Fazan pointed to another instance
Speaker 1: in which Epic Games had included animation that copied a
Speaker 1: dance he did in the television series Scrubs Terrence to Millie.
Speaker 1: Ferguson filed a lawsuit against Epic Games for using his
Speaker 1: Millie Rock dance. Anita Red, acting on behalf of Russell
Speaker 1: Backpack Kid Horning, filed a lawsuit because of the game
Speaker 1: using the floss dancing move, which Horning had made famous.
Speaker 1: In an airing of Saturday Night Live, Katy Perry was
Speaker 1: playing a song and she threw a whole lot of
Speaker 1: focus towards Horning, who then did the Flaws dance. It
Speaker 1: went totally viral and became a huge meme of itself.
Speaker 1: But here's the thing, he didn't invent that dance. You
Speaker 1: can just do a quick search on YouTube and you
Speaker 1: will find there are lots of videos that well pre
Speaker 1: date that Saturday Night Live performance, one going all the
Speaker 1: way back to two thousand ten of people doing that dance.
Speaker 1: So my guess is that particular lawsuit won't go very
Speaker 1: far ultimately once they're able to show that this kid
Speaker 1: didn't create that dance, and that while that that particular
Speaker 1: Saturday Night Live episode might have elevated everyone's awareness of
Speaker 1: the philosophy, it's not like that kid has any claim
Speaker 1: to ownership of the dance. The cases, however, bring up
Speaker 1: a question can a dance be copyrighted? Can you copyright
Speaker 1: dance moves? As of the recording of this podcast, that
Speaker 1: remains a pretty unanswered question. And also there are a
Speaker 1: lot of people point out that there's a long history
Speaker 1: of of various artists doing dances and making them famous
Speaker 1: and and profiting from them without having a actually invented them.
Speaker 1: Beyonce has lifted lots of dances from from films. Michael
Speaker 1: Jackson did not invent the moonwalk, but he sure did
Speaker 1: make it famous, So I'm not sure that this particular
Speaker 1: argument will go much further. However, it has led to
Speaker 1: a lot of people criticizing Epic Games in Fortnite for
Speaker 1: taking content or taking performances and not crediting the people
Speaker 1: who originally made those performances famous. So let's sum up Fortnite.
Speaker 1: It's a video game that was conceived in and shown
Speaker 1: off way too early. Epic Games has admitted they talked
Speaker 1: about this game far too early in the in the process,
Speaker 1: it didn't go into a closed alpha until two thousand
Speaker 1: and fourteen, transition to a closed beta in and stayed
Speaker 1: that way until going into early access as a player
Speaker 1: versus environment survival game in they you'd have to actually purchase.
Speaker 1: Later that year, a new variant that was free to
Speaker 1: play and one that closely resembled another game came out,
Speaker 1: propelled the entire title into the spotlight, and now it
Speaker 1: is a true phenomenon. The Fortnite Tracker network currently tracks
Speaker 1: more than fifty seven million, five hundred thousand players of
Speaker 1: the game. Some estimates for the total number of players
Speaker 1: across all platforms runs as high as eighty million. Now,
Speaker 1: Epic uses its own game launcher on the PC rather
Speaker 1: than going through valves Steam Service, which does allow for tracking.
Speaker 1: That means Epic doesn't have to share revenue with Valve
Speaker 1: because they're not selling their game or using valves Steam
Speaker 1: Service for that purpose. And the popularity of Fortnite has
Speaker 1: allowed Epic to launch its own video game store to
Speaker 1: rival Steam, and Epic is offering up incentives like a
Speaker 1: lower revenue cut than what Valve demands for featuring games
Speaker 1: in its store, and it's also offering up other incentives,
Speaker 1: so if a developer uses epics Unreal Engine, they get
Speaker 1: more bonuses for listing their game in Epics game Store. Now,
Speaker 1: some gamers might complain that Fortnite isn't a quote unquote
Speaker 1: serious game, or maybe that it lifts too many features
Speaker 1: from other sources without credit, or that they aren't playing
Speaker 1: in Steam, and because Steam is the established video game
Speaker 1: store that irritates people personally. I think that competition is
Speaker 1: always a good thing, but there's no denying that the
Speaker 1: game has become an enormously powerful force in pop culture
Speaker 1: in general and gaming in particular. As the company's name attests,
Speaker 1: it is truly Epic. At some point in twenty nineteen,
Speaker 1: the save the World mode is supposed to go into
Speaker 1: free to play mode. At that point, Epic will rely
Speaker 1: entirely on in game purchases to generate revenue from Fortnite,
Speaker 1: But the game has already paid off in large amounts,
Speaker 1: and if Epic Game Store is successful, it will likely
Speaker 1: go down as one of the biggest wins in video
Speaker 1: game history. That's something worth dancing about. Well. That wraps
Speaker 1: up this look at Epic Games is Fortnite and the
Speaker 1: phenomenon it has created. If you guys are Fortnite players,
Speaker 1: or you have any specific thoughts on the subject, or
Speaker 1: maybe you have a suggestion for a future episode of
Speaker 1: tech Stuff, get in touch with me. Send me an
Speaker 1: email the addresses tech Stuff at how stuff works dot com,
Speaker 1: or go to tech Stuff podcast dot com. You can
Speaker 1: find the archive of our older shows there and other
Speaker 1: ways to get in touch with me on social media.
Speaker 1: Don't forget to pop on over to our merchandise store
Speaker 1: that's over at t public dot com slash tech Stuff.
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