“If you buried a marble with certain necessary incantations and left it alone a fortnight, and then opened the place with the incantation he had just used, you would find that all the marbles you had ever lost had gathered themselves together there, meantime, no matter how widely they had been separated.” For you literary connoisseurs in the audience, you should have no issue recognizing the above quotation from The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, and if you didn’t pick that up, well, now you know. However, the purpose of including that passage was not to bore you with literature you were forced to read in grade school, no, it serves a much greater purpose; demonstrating to all the proper use of the word “fortnight.”
A fortnight is equivalent to fourteen days, or two weeks, and is derived from the Old English phrase, “fēowertyne niht,” meaning “fourteen nights. I can assume, with almost unequivocal certainty, that the wordsmiths responsible for this delectable phrase had no intention of it being used as a title for a mind-numbing video game but, nevertheless, here we are. The game in question, Fortnite Battle Royale was launched back in July 2017 by Epic Games and has since become a cultural phenomenon akin to pogs, Super Smash Bros, pet rocks, and the Jersey Shore.
If you haven’t had the chance to play Fortnite, I’m not sure I’d be able to live with the guilt if I recommended you give it a try, but I will fully admit that it is an addicting game. The premise of the game is based on the classic “battle royale” (i.e. Super Smash Bros, H1Z1, Rules Of Survival) trope which pits players against one another until one player remains, but Epic Games’ Fornite has managed to lay waste to all other competing games in the market.
Ironically enough, if you’ve played the game or streamed live games on Twitch, you know that the gameplay is relatively simple, the graphics aren’t mind-blowing, and for all intents and purposes, it doesn’t play like a game receiving attention like Fortnite. According to analyst firm SuperData, Fornite was the top-grossing free-to-play game in the world in 2018, grabbing a cool $2.4 billion over a 12-month period.
Though the game is completely free to play for cheapskates like yours truly, players can purchase character “skins” and other add-ons to customize their avatars using “v-bucks” which are purchased with legal currency. Super Data also estimates that 34% of all US Fortnite players also purchased a seasonal “battle pass,” which grants players access to other collectibles and VIP-items used for gameplay. To put the game’s prowess into perspective, the New York Times reported earlier this week that Netflix (NFLX) announced in their recent quarterly report that they feel threatened by Fortnite.
“We earn consumer screen time, both mobile and television, away from a very broad set of competitors. We compete with (and lose to) Fortnite more than HBO. When YouTube went down globally for a few minutes in October, our viewing and signups spiked for that time…There are thousands of competitors in this highly fragmented market vying to entertain consumers and low barriers to entry for those with great experiences.”
–Netflix letter to shareholders, Q4-18 Report
To put it simply, Netflix is well aware pop the competition out there that would otherwise threaten their ability to keep mobile users captivated and glued to their streaming site.
It’s worth mentioning that the success of Fortnite has catalyzed more nefarious outcomes as well. In recent news, “V-bucks,” the game’s official currency is now being used by unsavory characters to launder money on the dark web. According to the report, hackers who’ve managed to steal credit card information from various individuals then use these cards to purchase V-bucks.
Once they’ve purchased the video game currency, in an attempt to “clean” the money, hackers then resell their v-bucks to Fortnite players at a discounted rate. Perhaps the most interesting part is that while all of this illegal activity is happening, Epic Games is making a profit.
