Around 2017-2018, there used to be a huge circlejerk online about how Fortnite was the dumbest thing ever, to the point where “Fortnite bad, Minecraft good” was part of the infamous Keanu Chungus 100 meme. Why did it get so much hate, and why did it stop?
I didn’t begin to “hate” Fortnite until Epic began throwing their dirty money around to aggregate unrelated personalities and sullying their otherwise spotless image. Something about Kratos doing ridiculous dances just rubs me the wrong way, and that’s only one example.
Beyond that, my “hate” also stems from Epic as a whole being a scummy business. You could say most large-scale games publishers these days are shady and act in poor faith, and you could argue that Epic is merely a consequence of the times and the environment they’ve grown out of. However, I won’t hold them to a different standard just because of that. Epic, EA, Square Enix, Ubisoft, Activision Blizzard, et cetera; I recognize all their shitty actions and want nothing to do with any of them anymore.
Personally I started on a bad foot for Fortnite when Epic shut down Paragon, which was an amazingly promising third-person MOBA and probably the only MOBA I’ve ever legitimately enjoyed, in favor of chasing Fortnite’s cash cow. One day I just log in to find that the servers were shut down, no refunds**, no releasing server software for people to stand up their own, just “nah we decided not to support this game anymore, fuck off nerds”
It’s only really tangentially Fortnite’s fault, if at all, and I already wasn’t going to like Fortnite because I can’t enjoy BR’s. But hearing that Epic suddenly shut down my favorite game they’ve made in order to relocate those resources into the Lootbox Apocalypse populated with preteens, really soured me a lot on the whole idea.
At this point in my life, years later, I’ve seen enough 8 year olds doing Fortnite dances in Walmart to know that I won’t be able to connect with the user base, I already know I don’t enjoy the basic premise of the game, and I’m not going to spend $12 to make my character look like Kratos or Rick Sanchez in a game I can’t stand playing full of people I don’t want to talk to. I’m not their target audience, and you know, that’s okay. I’ve gotten over my anger at Fortnite’s sheer existence and now I’m merely disappointed in it. But I was never going to ride this bandwagon anyway so Epic never had a reason to care about my preferences.
**Actually after some brief investigation it seems that Epic did in fact offer refunds for the game. I’m pretty sure I didn’t get one, but I think that was because I didn’t apply for it in time. Regardless, game go poof and I’d rather have had the game than my money back.
The comment I’ve been looking for. Epic.
Hear! Hear!