What do you think about the games Minecraft and Fortnite (Battle Royale)? While some titles come and go, some rare ones stick around and keep the fans entertained for months and years to come. In this article, we wanted to compare the trend between these two titles and check which one of both will prevail in the long run.
This is good
And this is bad
One’s an icon
one a fad
A game for children, a game for dads
Minecraft good and Fortnite bad
This small poem by the people in the Minecraft subreddit may now be more relevant than ever before. But why? Why is Minecraft beloved today and Fortnite despised? Let’s dig in. (Pun intended)
The competitors
On the one hand, we have Minecraft, a game that is easy to learn, hard to master, and relatively difficult to explain. It’s an endless template for creativity and exploration. It allows the builders to build, the gamers to game, and the artists to art.
On the other hand, we have Fortnite. A game in the popular genre battle-royale genre, where you and 99 other players. All jump from a flying bus in the sky and loot locations in the map to be the last one standing, a simple concept that was revolutionized with the ability to build things. Fortnite is now the biggest game in the world according to player counts. It has 250 million users, made $2,400,000,000 in revenue in 2018 alone, and fills the aisles of shops with quality merchandise.
Season X is here and Dusty Depot has returned.
Explore new locations, jump into the new mech vehicle B.R.U.T.E. and check out all the rewards in the Season X Battle Pass! https://t.co/MSstBx44Zk pic.twitter.com/2dkgNrEQ67
— Fortnite (@FortniteGame) August 1, 2019
It has made an impact on pop culture, but just how big of an impact in the long term. In 10 years will Fortnite be as remembered as Minecraft? Well, no. But why? It shares many similarities with Minecraft in its early days. Minecraft is seeing a resurgence now because of the factor of nostalgia. The same kids who loved the game years ago are now 20-year-olds and are nostalgic for their childhood. So isn’t it safe to assume the same will happen for Fortnite?
Well, one major drawback Fortnite has is the assured death of its online servers. Every online game eventually stops making money and has to shut down its servers and in the battle-royale genre of having a 100 players each game with the ability to instantly hop into another game after you die, makes it drastically harder for servers to stay alive. So when the servers die, the players who want to return to the game in many years won’t be able to. But this is up to the profitability of the franchise and there is no need to cut any services for as long they bring in the money.
Originality
Fortnite isn’t the first battle royale game to gain mass popularity. It was announced in 2011 as a game inspired by Minecraft and later had the battle-royale mode added in after the success of PUBG. But now we see even more studios implementing the battle-royale genre so if in 10 years, players wanted the same battle-royale experience, other games will accommodate that audience in droves and nobody will remember Fortnite as a pioneer in the genre as it wasn’t.
Survival? Meh. Creative? Oh please. For a real challenge, you need to play hardcore mode! We sent our 'brightest' https://t.co/BJdLbjKvDw writers into Minecraft's meanest mode to answer one question: which one of them is the most hardcore?
↣ https://t.co/7KFuuH0UbQ ↢ pic.twitter.com/6BgmgJLkY3
— Minecraft (@Minecraft) August 24, 2019
People did not praise Minecraft because it copied other games at the time. They appreciated it because it was original and offered players to play in any way they wanted to play. Its endless potential means endless replayability. It can be enjoyed with others or played by yourself. Its gameplay and visual style will never be stated as antiquated and will always be timeless. And it doesn’t have to be fixed to one specific generation and can be played by anyone.
The most significant advantage that Minecraft may have over Fortnite is simple. Games will come around that improve upon the battle-royale formula with improved graphics, better gameplay, and new features. But when it comes to mining and crafting, Minecraft cannot be beaten.
Who will prevail?
Minecraft has already passed Fortnite on Google Trends, and Fortnite’s popularity has been dropping for a while now. So with the information we know right now, it just seems inevitable that Fortnite will eventually fade away. It won’t be listed amongst the greats. It won’t be the Dooms, the Super Marios or the Tetrises.
It will just be a fad confined to today, and even if the servers magically stayed online after 20 years, Fortnite wouldn’t hold up as better options would come along. So at the end of the day, Minecraft would be seen as a leader in its genre while Fortnite would be seen as a mere follower.
This guest article has been prepared by Rafio Shazzad.
Photo credit: The feature image has been provided as part of a community kit and is owned by Epic Games.
Source: Tom Hoggins (Telegraph) / Ben Gilbert (Business Insider) / Patrick Shanley (Hollywood Reporter)
