“Fortnite is not a competitive game, I don’t care what anyone says. In my eyes, it is not a competitive game and is not an esport and you are not a pro player because this game does not have a competitive side to it – this game isn’t competitive at all…competitive Fortnite is not a thing.” – Tfue
Tfue
Having just hit its 1.000th day since release, the gaming revelation of Fortnite has had an impressive run as a title which has left an imprint on the gaming industry together with the esports industry – but is it for the better? In this discussion, we’ll be taking an analytical look at the state of Fortnite both casually and competitively to respond Tfue’s claim and to explain why the title has is as low as it’s ever been.
The Problem – Epic Games
In the past few months, competitive Fortnite has been under-fire by almost every demographic in the industry: the community, professional players, streamers, organizations and even event organizers. Epic Games’ co-ordinated events have been riddled with controversy over multiple game-breaking issues as seen at the Fortnite Finals: the FNCS. All of the following were present: server issues, lag issues, DDosing, griefing from competitors, professionals disconnecting, no official broadcast, format issues and aimbot hacking together with cheaters collaborating. Other forms of controversy include the entire controller vs mouse and keyboard debacle which remains unresolved.
It sounds awful because it is. What makes it worse is that Epic Games has offered no response over any of the issues, instead simply banning players every now and then for an unsubstantial amount of time as we’ve covered on our news site. What’s more, is that this has been ongoing for a while now – so much so that the results of the Contender Cash Cup (April 30th) were completely voided due to the hackers present. Hence, we can deduce that Epic Games is aware of the situation.
Bearing this in mind, there’s one question to ask – is Epic Games even interested in establishing a framework for esports integrity?
The Response – The Community
No, apparently not.
The following is a quote from the president of TSM, Leena Xu, who stated the following live on stream. Note that she has fostered a team for Fortnite in the past, involving popular names such as Myth who have all now left the scene.
“I don’t think that they do a good job at all, I hope that they get better. There’s like not a competitive scene, let’s be honest. I think they do a good job in putting money into the prize pool but it’s not very like well-streamed or anything”.
Leena Xu
“Honestly, I think that they don’t really believe in esports, that’s my honest opinion, I think they like having hype around their game but they don’t really care about competitive integrity. You can definitely tell because there are cheaters and callousers in their game and they do nothing”.
Her words stand for any number of articles: Epic Games is simply not interested. To summarise, Fortnite may have offered prize pools, but that seems to be the only thing offered.
Content creators and professional competitors responded in what I like to call the ‘Epic Games Exile’ as over 15 prominent names quit the title within a week. Names include the following
- Keys, Dmo and Zayn
- SpaceLyon, Clank and JLove
- Metro
- Joseph
- 72hrs
- NICKMERCS
- Liquid Poach
- CouRage
- DrLupo
- TSM Myth and Daequaun
All of whom have left for similar reasons revolving around the game simply being unplayable at a high level reliably as outlined by two excerpts below:
Poach – “decisions being fundamentally flawed when running this esport as well as their lackluster communication with the pro and fan communities”.
CouRage – “I can’t play these skill based matchmaking games by myself or else I turn incredibly toxic because it’s like I’m competing for the damn Olympics in every single one of my lobbies”.
A lack of communication, organizational support, loss of interest and an unstable experience have driven these names away. Although this accounts for the competitive players, content creators had another reason to play as outlined by CouRage above.
Due to the SBMM (skill-based-match-making) integrated into the public matches, highly-skilled streamers were constantly being matched up against the likes of incredible competition together with hackers consistently. Over 1,000 days later, Epic Games never thought to implement a ‘Competitive/League Play’ mode to avoid this – that says a lot about their mentality towards esports as a whole.
Epic Games’ lacklustre approach to esports was somewhat evident in 2019’s Fortnite World Cup as the viewing experience was rather poor overall as the title consistently depends on individuals to provide viewership, which is hardly ethical as there is no unbiased presentation of competition. Yes, the prize pool was staggering, though this must be easy considering the amount of money the title has made in its span of existence. That, in short, is the illusion of competitive Fortnite.
Since all of these events, has there been any hope for Fortnite? Can Epic Games recover from this?
Present Day – Conclusion
Certain personalities, such as Ninja, are still enjoying the third-person battle-royale title on a daily basis. Also, despite the absolutely huge competition in the form of free-to-play Valorant AND Warzone at the moment, viewership is still present in the title. The recent Travis Scott Fortnite event managed to gain 12 million live viewers – which is shocking.
Even at the FNCS: despite the cheating and the fact that no official broadcast was present, it still garnered 400,000 views which is incredible.
So no, although many have tweeted #RipFortnite, a community is still strong and present: not dead. Valorant and Warzone may have more active players and streamers, but Fortnite is still here.
Unfortunately, as an esport, things are looking grim due to the cancellation of the staple event of the 2020 Fortnite World Cup as announced below:
“Due to the limitations of cross region online competition, there will not be a Fortnite World Cup in 2020”
Still, there is hope, though Epic Games needs to work on fixing certain issues and rectifying standards immediately – for example, FaZe Dubs was only caught cheating a day ago and it’s tiring as a journalist to stay encountering these issues.
Will the competitive Fortnite seen last?
Personally, I’m afraid the answer is yes. Although Epic Games may be failures at ensuring clean and structured esports: if there’s $30 million up for grabs, competitors are going to show up no matter what. Unless the esports industry takes a stand and nobody plays for the money, it simply won’t be possible to stop competitors from going for it.
There still remains an opportunity for Epic Games to clean their act up and focus on esports, though from the quotes above, this will most likely not occur.
Make sure to tune in to https://www.esportsguide.com/ for all your latest esports news.
