The Downfall of Fortnite Battle Royale (Full Documentary)

first impression of the game it's fun well let's go pleasant park spawn let's get it this looks like a knockoff of battlegrounds alex so much fun though where they at where they at where they actually oh oh i feel the rhythm let's go 27 solos 34 solar squad not bad [Music] 31 new record i realized that i could probably like go to a pro level ladies and gentlemen i believe we are getting ready to start game number one here at the fortnite pro am him and marshmallow come out on top this man about to get hip fired it needs a nerf that's that's that's for sure eventually this is not even a game anymore like it's just there's no decision making it's literally you see someone you can hold left foot i have to do long division to feel figure out how many smgs there are now in fortnite the game is in such a bad spot right now you have to be trolling dude i don't understand what do they think increase the time between subsequent turbo build placements from 0.05 seconds to 0.15 what why would they do that no way can you hear that infinity blade as well he's still alive breaking through number 10 for knees with the infinity blade [Music] wait for real two four six eight close to ten vehicles in the air at the moment i hate planes so much man so much dude season 10 was the worst season of fortnite yet it's never been as bad as it's been right now the pro players are upset the content creators are upset what's going on man i i i feel like there's no communication right now when fortnite battle royale was released back on the 26th of september 2017 the potential outcome for what had been created was completely unspecified all right here we go i want timmy dead a new free game in the battle royale genre i mean come on there was already pubg and this new fortnight game was completely free for anyone to download how good could it possibly be well some of these aspects that were considered negatives in the beginning would go on to make the game one of the most successful games ever released into gaming oh i'm not even no no no no [Music] tiny baby let's go however things started to go wrong around late season fours oh irritated man can't wait for freaking call of duty to come out man awful updates and mass complaints from the community began to roll in playground mode completely flattened the skill gap smgs began to overtake the beloved shotgun meta that made the game so fun in the first place what infinity blades planes mechs and a bunch of brainless updates has caused the game to slowly lose popularity since its peak in july 2018 but was it just the bad updates or was it the fact that people just lost interest in the game over time this same old [ __ ] is boring buckle up boys as we cover the rise and fall of fortnite battle royale i want you to cast your mind back to mid 2017. where were you for some of you it might feel like a long time ago in a place far from where you are now and for some others listening it might feel like just yesterday well for a team of developers at the relatively unknown epic games mid 2017 is what we might call the calm before the storm because on the 25th of july 2017 a project that had been in development for over six years was ready to be released to the general public this special project was the now popular fortnight epic games explained in 2011 that they wanted to create a game that combined the construction game genre with a first-person shooter gaming genre to create something that might be a mix of maybe minecraft and call of duty epic games had recently completed the extremely popular game gears of war and to let themselves down from the hype they participated in what was called a game jam an event where game developers would try and create the best possible game within a limited period of time say for example one to three days it was in this game jam after the release of gears of war that the idea of fortnite was born and then the discussions around what happened at game jam is actually kind of what led to fortnite and fortnite wasn't a direct result it wasn't one of the games in the game jam but that process was kind of the fuel that caused that to become created the game was then announced in december 2011 at the spike game awards then two and a half years after the announcement in early 2014 signs began to appear here and there that the game was nearing completion game informer uploaded the video inside the development history of fortnite on the 25th of april 2014. in this video the developers explained what they had been working on and how it was coming along it's a game that spawned directly from passion this is just something that people wanted to build we were just coming off the gears and we wanted to do something totally fresh there was also other videos being uploaded to youtube displaying the mechanics and giving an insight into how the game was looking back in 2014 however despite looking like fortnite was ready to be released in 2014 the game wouldn't be ready for another three years but after polishing the gameplay consistently over those three years the game was ready to be released which was announced at e3 in june 2017. we're going to start with one called fortnite now uh i don't know much about a lot of these so i think the best way to do it is just jump in fortnite save the world was then released on the 25th of july 2017 which was one month after the initial announcement fortnite saved the world was set up as a single player vs environment game a combination that epic believed to be a resemblance of minecraft and left for dead the save the world part of fortnite was at one million players only one month after release in august 2017. however there was a bit of a problem with save the world there needed to be more of a pvp aspect to the game sure versing monsters all the time was kind of fun but the game lacked a gripping competitive aspect one game that did have an excellent third person competitive aspect however was the game player unknown battlegrounds released one year previously in july 2016. playerunknown's battlegrounds had utilized a recently new style of gameplay called battle royale a style that was relatively unused by many other games at the time you died didn't give a go and and just keep going again right and again and again and just it's all about the pvp so the concept was fairly simple a hundred players drop into an island find weapons and the last player alive is the winner the gameplay style was extraordinarily competitive and fun but wasn't used by many games besides pubg h1z1 and some other smaller titles at the time epic games noticed this and spotted a gap in the market and this is where things just seemed to kind of align for fortnite they had a game where you could shoot like call of duty and build like minecraft as well as an opportunity to integrate their game into the battle royale genre however epic games didn't only draw inspiration from the success of pubg they also drew inspiration from the success of another huge game at the time league of legends league of legends had taken a slightly different route to monetize their game which fortnite eventually adopted rather than just charging a fee up front to play the game forever they actually gave the game out for free with monetization coming from cosmetic in-game purchases this also kept the player base strong as there was no barrier to downloading the game if you were a new player which obviously epic games liked epic games then took all of these aspects the free game the building the shooting the battle royale to create the now popular fortnite battle royale which was released to the public for free on the 26th of september 2017. fortnite battle royale was an instant success the fact that the game was free to play removed any hesitance for a potential player to at least try it out only two weeks after release the game had hit 10 million players 10 times what saved the world was able to achieve in its first month the fact that everyone was on a similar skill level at the start meant everyone had an equal chance of winning and the possibility that the next game could be your first victory royale this is awesome this competitive aspect caused players to play over and over and over to try and get at least one win and by the time you did win it was over you're hooked the addictive nature of the game was incomparable to any other game available on the market many huge streamers then began catching on to how fun the game was with people such as ninja oh wait what's up oh hello summit chillin for now right below nice and sidion the third switching their primary streaming focus to fortnite yes then these streamers began to experiment with crazy ideas on streams such as rocket riding which were clipped and shared extensively on social media bolstering the growth of fortnite even further [Music] [Music] players got bored of playing solos and began to invite their friends to play squads multiplying the player count and causing extreme exponential growth it was likely around this point that epic games realized that perhaps rather than using the battle royale genre to get people to buy save the world they should just double down on battle royale and make it their primary development focus on the 25th of october 2017 exactly one month after the release of battle royale epic games introduced fortnite season 1. season one wasn't much different to the previous month however epic games introduced what was called the item and season shop where players could purchase cosmetic items and pick axes for real money the first example of epic games monetizing the battle royale aspect of the game these skins would later become rare which is insignificant now but will be important in later parts of the downfall [Music] by the end of season 1 in december 2017 only three months after the initial release of the game fortnite had reached 30 million registered users and had overtaken pubg as the most streamed battle royale on twitch and it only had league of legends standing in the way of the top spot however by season 2 in january 2018 only one month later fortnite overtook league of legends to become the most popular game on twitch and by this point people had really started to take advantage of the build mechanic as a proper strategy for staying alive and realized that this mechanic distinguished it from any other battle royale the building mechanic took the game from a mediocre third person shooter in season one to a game with a genius way of protecting yourself and when you're in the fight and you're able to do something on the mouse or keyboard that could alter that fight that could change that fight based on your ability or skill or knowledge that's what you want right you want this mousy keyboard to be your lamborghini right here man a stick shift lamborghini on top of this the game just had pace like no other number one optimized and that is why it's popularity is just like yeah you'll love it it was just non-stop action and players literally could not get enough after overtaking league of legends on twitch in january 2018 fortnite then overtook pub g in terms of active play account in february 2018 only one month later and it's not like the twitch record stopped there because one month later in march 2018 an event would take place that will break the record for the most viewers in a single stream on twitch ninja playing with drake 636 000 concurrent viewers i got i got 5k donation if you get this dub right now yeah playing fortnite had officially become mainstream just in case it wasn't already before that literal one match with drake made it okay for everyone to play video games so much so that fortnite hosted its first major public event only three months later in june 2018. the fortnight celebrity pro-am kim starr autumn ninja can he clutch it out ninja kickstart gets the win what a play wow famous music artists ufc fighters sports stars and fortnite players all playing for 3 million in charity prize money after the event had displayed the capabilities of what could be possible in the esports world it didn't seem like anything could possibly go wrong for fortnite they had the gaming world in their hands what could possibly bring such a behemoth of a game undone [Music] well on the 27th of june 2018 only two weeks after the celebrity pro-am event epic games released a new game mode into fortnite battle royale called playground mode oh my god look at that mate playground sandbox mode playground mode offered a sandbox style of gameplay giving every player the opportunity to practice their building with unlimited material and no limitations from other players now while the community loved this newly implemented game mode it began to do strange things to the skill level of the player base everyone started to get extremely skilled in a very short period of time it seemed as though after playground was released the skill level that was achieved in six months previously could be achieved in only two weeks by simply practicing in playground mode after playground was released all of the newbies just kind of disappeared and everyone's skill level increased dramatically it was difficult for new players to get a grip on the game because the beginner's skill level was diminished following the release of playground it's likely that epic released the game mode attempting to give those new players a leg up with a practicing platform but it just seemed to get abused by high-level players who just wanted to get even better now it's hard to actually quantify whether or not players left the game following the update especially considering it was an ongoing game mode but i think we can all agree if you can reach almost peak skill level in two weeks instead of six months and everyone on the game is now extremely skilled putting up a barrier for new players it's going to affect the health of the game in a negative way over the long term so what was it that followed this epic games began to notice the increased skill level of the general player by the time season 5 rolled around just after the playground mode update everyone was extremely skilled at building all of a sudden oh no not the people the skill level of the players in season 4 compared to season 5 was almost incomparable epic saw this as an issue because how is a potential new player going to win a game versing a hundred other experienced players when they have no experience themselves what he betrayed me bro they had to change something to give newer players a shot but instead of removing playground the gamemode that made everyone extremely experienced in the first place they started to mess with one of the main things that made the game so fun in the first place the shotgun meta the most effective close quarter weapon at the time was the range of shotguns with submachine guns in the background as a secondary epic games hatched a plan to increase the strength of the submachine gun range in the hope that newbies could just shoot through builds instead of learning how to build themselves with the macro goal of competing with the shotgun better at the time however they made two main mistakes with the implementation firstly they made the submachine guns way too strong like this thing is actually dumb it's actually dumb the silence smg is literally the best weapon in the game right now and secondly they made the main aspect of the game building completely redundant in the process given that the new submachine guns could completely rip through enemy builds with zero skill level i got you guys away epic introduced a new sub machine gun in the first update of season 5 on the 17th of july 2018. however epic games didn't really feel as though it did what they desired so they added the p90 only one week later on the 25th of july and this weapon was absolute carnage not broken by the way the beginning of season five also saw the removal of the controversial double shotgun strategy another update designed to reduce the strength of the shotgun medal after finding a shotgun another shot could not be fired for a very short time so you can't double pump or get rid of double shots they're switching the meta to the double shotgun smg they're switching the meta it was at this point that everyone kind of started to realize what epic was trying to do with the meta it only took about two seconds of critical thinking to realize that they were trying to give new players the edge but they made the new submachine gun so strong that people just stopped playing for a day or two until they fixed it the almost laughable part about the update was that the people who the gun was put in for the newbies were complaining about the p90 in the same way that the pros were after the update it seemed to become trendy to start hating epic and complaining about fortnite over a one-month period between season 4 and season 5 everyone went from thinking it was the greatest game ever created to a game doomed and destined for failure looking back perhaps a self-fulfilling prophecy then various videos started to come out with titles along the lines of is fortnite dying we're on the cusp of something great and i'm not really sure if it lasts the next season you know if we look at the google trends graph of fortnight the weekend where p90s were released into the game was when it was at peak popularity with a slow decline following and as we can observe from the graph the p90 update was really only the beginning of the decline [Music] fortnite season six the previously discussed smg problem that was seeing many players leave the game had been fixed to some extent with various nerves are they still worth like using and doubling up and all that they're fine at very very close range but they're not like stupidly broken at far range anymore you know however shotguns still hadn't been returned to their former glory and season six brought its own set of problems the popularity of fortnite peaked upon the introduction of season six however died down to the lowest point that fortnite had been at by the end of the season the introduction of zombies was just found to be a nuisance with seemingly very few people advocating to keep the mechanic in the game dude these zombies go away you're making this so much more harder than it needs to be however there was something else that occurred in this season which was another intangible phenomena that made many people lose a bit more respect for epic games during halloween 2018 in season six epic decided to re-release the scythe pickaxe and the skull trooper skin two cosmetic items that were available only to the original season one players wait the og ones in the the og ones in the shop too oh my god it's back they put the og in oh my god and while everyone seemed kind of happy to have the opportunity to purchase these skins there was also an underlying sadness that epic had sold out a little bit on their original player base it kind of made buying skins less exciting since everyone knew that there was now a possibility that no skin could be rare in the future because epic games kind of showed that they would sell out on the rareness of a skin if it meant a slight uptick in short-term revenue and since buying skins was less fun this just translated into the game being a little less fun however the reintroduction of rare skins was nothing compared to what epic would do to ruin the game in a following update it looks like he's kind of committed to the infinity blade areas and he's going to be the first to pick it up he has to build this time around because he knows the player there he's going straight for the dive and you hear that infinity blade as well he's still alive breaking through everything number 10 for niece with the infinity blade he's just chopping through everything he has 400 freaking hp people the infinity blade speculatively agreed upon to be the worst and most game-changing update ever released into fortnite now if you're still doubting the power of the infinity blade look what happens when you dive into tilted towers this thing will literally smash through any structure in its way meaning you can pretty much level that entire city in a matter of seconds it is absolutely disgusting a weapon that completely threw all of the rules out the window altering not only gameplay but professional tournaments as well all three land here here comes the hop over that's the elimination on coup train then throw another controversial plane update in the mix and you have yourself a potential recipe for disaster i hate planes so much man so much dude well i say a recipe for disaster but the data might prove otherwise it seems as though fortnite actually had very little drop in google search volume throughout season seven actually peaking in many places however i'd say that this was due to a mass number of people googling the potential removal of the infinity blade and planes when everything is going fine in the game there's not really much reason to search for fortnite on google these updates seem to provide mass traffic for the game throughout season 7. however it's questionable if this was healthy for the longevity of the game given that in season 8 search volume for fortnite dropped extremely heavily after a small peak during the introduction of the season then the same story was season 9 a small peak in popularity at the beginning of the season followed by another drop to the lowest point in the game's history [Music] the beginning of season 10 then returned the popularity of the game back to where it was in season 8. the season was marketed as season x which added a little bit of excitement for what was to come in the season however as you might guess the season itself came with its own set of challenges it seems as though epic didn't really get the message that players didn't enjoy ridiculously overpowered and unbalanced meta within fortnite because season x began with a new update that some might argue was the most unbalanced update to come into the game since the infinity blade oh god mex appeared to be another one of those updates out of purely to spark outrage from the community and flatten the skill gap giving the lower skilled players a chance to win what's up boys driver just play on the driver bro go on take him out however all mechs seemed to do was create a bigger gap between the halves and the hap nods if you had a mech you're unstoppable if not you would have a hard time beating someone who did have a mech following this many people started saying that season x was the worst season yet season 10 was the worst season of fortnite yet this was then backed up by the fact that two weeks after the beginning of the season fortnite once again hit a new low on google trends but epic games wasn't stupid they could see that the game was dying there was only so many seasons they could produce before people realized holy crap i've been playing this game for 11 seasons maybe it's time to find something new they could see that every season more players were leaving so they needed to refresh and revitalize the game on the 13th of october 2019 at the end of season x an event took place where the fortnite map was sucked into a black hole an extraordinary way to end what was considered a bit of an awful season but when the next season was supposed to start nothing happened just this screen for two days straight no one could play fortnite which caused the fortnite search volume to skyrocket to a level never seen before because i guess if you're not playing fortnite you're probably googling fortnite right then after two days of silence which was likely a publicity stunt to get everyone hyped and talking about the game again fortnite chapter 2 was released a full new map new guns vaulted guns swimming fishing could this be the return of fortnite to its former glory well as seen on the trend graph not really two weeks after the release of the season the popularity was back down to where it was in season ten with many people saying that chapter 2 update was a bit of a letdown mainly focusing the complaints around the fact that the season was 4 months long with very few updates and new pieces of content chapter 2 alone will almost be two seasons long and all we have to show for it are a couple of new weapons that's why i gotta ask what have the developers been doing for this long by the end of chapter 2 season 1 the game had hit yet another low a low that hadn't been lower than any other season however after the release of chapter 2 season 2 something bizarre happened the popularity of fortnite began to rise again instead of following the trend of the previous year being a spike then a dropping popularity it was a spike then a drop then a gradual rise to a new hide that hadn't been seen in about a year what could epic possibly be doing that they weren't doing previously well it's hard to say but i have a sneaking suspicion that it might be related to the quantity of people at home currently rather than school or work and since there's minimal data to discover the accuracy of this statement it's hard to draw an accurate conclusion however since hitting another peak upon the release of chapter 2 season 3 the game seems to be on another downward trend a trend that may certainly continue into the future so it creates the closing argument for the video what caused the gradual decline of fortnite over time well from everything presented and by analyzing the opinion of the public it seems to be a mix of questionable updates and just a loss of interest over time sure it's easy to blame the bad updates but at the end of the day there's only so long that someone can play a game before it begins to become recurring and monotonous it's coming up on three years since the game was released and to think that the people interested back in 2017 are the same people interested now is possibly a naive judgment not that you really care about my opinion but i'm going to give it to you anyway and it might be controversial but i think one of the main perpetrators was playground and creative mode i think that it would have made the game significantly more enjoyable to just trust the natural progression of people learning each aspect within the game while versing others in real time the reason those first 6 to 12 months were so fun was because everyone kind of sucked and it felt as though everyone was bad and getting better on an equal level suddenly when playground was introduced in season 5 hit there just wasn't as much reason to play public matches because you could learn everything by playing privately and then when you did go to public games everyone suddenly knew what they were doing the natural progression felt off and made the game instantly less enjoyable regardless the game has provided people with so much entertainment and good times up until this point so despite having a decline in popularity it still appears to be an excellent game to jump into and it's free to play so as we said at the start why not give it a shot

Channel: SunnyV2

Views: 1,754,759

Rating: 4.8692102 out of 5

Keywords: thesmithplays, fortnite, fortnite storyline, chapter 2, season 2, season 3, simulation, theory, event, explained, chapter 1, entire fortnite storyline, chapter 2 fortnite, season 3 fortnite, the entire fortnite storyline, office jonesy, documentary, youtube documentary, rise and fall, Biography, narration, video essay, twitch, youtube, entertainment, education, joon the king, family friendly, sunnyv2, fortnite downfall, downfall, sunnyv2 downfall, fortnite battle royale, epic games

Id: -LGzBjFZJ3I

Length: 28min 0sec (1680 seconds)

Published: Thu Aug 06 2020