I was in 1st/2nd grade grade when the big Pokémon boom of the late 90s-early 00s happened. It was HUGE. Every kid was into it and we’d watch the show and play pretend and collect the cards and bring our game boys to school to trade Pokémon during recess. I was lucky to have supportive parents, but I remember how teachers and other adults would scoff and say how tired they were of Pokémon, how annoying and juvenile it was and how they couldn’t wait for us to “get over it already”. I might have been young, but I still remember how much these kinds of comments bummed me out. Why in the world are we being mean to little kids who like Fortnite
Why are you comparing pokemon to fortnite???
Because… Fortnite is very popular amongst children at the moment? And there are adults who dismiss it in the same way other adults did when Pokémon was big, calling it stupid, saying the dances are annoying, how much they can’t wait for the “fad to be over”, etc. It’s pretty much the same scenario.
Fortnite has a lootbox system that is glorified gambling, and can cause patterns of addiction in even adult minds, and that is in fact its intended goal in order for the game to make money from microtransactions. That’s how all games with lootboxes function. That’s how they draw in their customer base and squeeze more money out of them.
Like, I don’t judge kids who enjoy Fortnite. My little cousin plays Fortnite.
But last week, my little cousin also stole his mother’s credit card and spent about a month’s salary on microtransactions without his parents’ knowledge.
Modern gaming has become vile and predatory in ways that we didn’t have to deal with as children.
And we shouldn’t be mean to children about this, but we should definitely be coming down on these companies like a pile of fucking bricks.
Delicious.
Finally, some PROPER FORTNITE CRITICISM