DISCLAIMER: I played the game on my PS5 so I dont have reference screenshots from my personal gameplay. I will search up images from online to show the item shop and other components!!
The game I played this week is called Fortnite. This is a free-for-all battle royal style fps game where up to 100 players compete to be the last player standing in the battle arena/island. Players forage the island and college weapons to eliminate players before the health harming storm consumes them. This game was developed by Epic Games and released on July 21, 2017 by Epic Games via their online channel. This made the game accessible on macOS, PlayStation 4, Windows, and Xbox One, but has since been made available on IOS, Nintendo Switch, Android, PS5; and can also be found on Amazon Luma, NVIDIA GeForce NOW, and Xbox Cloud Gaming. Considering the cross platform playability of this game, Fortnite becomes one of the most accessible online games out there, with users able to play with other players across any device. This helps engage the population of potential players by lowering the friction to play
Fortnite is widely popular among kids, with many dark designs that intentionally maximize their engagement and monetization ability. The biggest 3 methods of putting players at risk for addiction is 1) Social Pressure 2) Authority Bias and a 3) False Sense of Urgency. Social pressure is created with the active display and reminder of your friends online status. As soon as you join the game, you see who is online and the UI encrouages you to invite and play with friends. This coupled with the games quick game turn around (ability to join a new match immediately after loosing a match without having to go back to the lobby) encourages players to keep playing the game. Authority Bias is apparent with all of the celebrity collaborations the game takes on. From having in-game Concerts, to famous streamers being endorsed, to creator codes and custom player skins that replicate popular personas in media, there is a subconscious approval and support and credibility celebrities are giving to the game. Lastly, a False Sense of Urgency is found in the item shop.
In this image above, see how there’s a 23 hour time limit to purchase the following skins? This encourages players to purchase their IRL idols in the game before the time runs out and the sale of these skins are gone indefinitely. Fortnite has made a more consistent effort to bring skins back in a more routine fashion, but having there uncertainty of an items return in the market, there is the false sense of urgency to purchase even though the supply is endless.
Beyond the general layout and construct of the entire Fortnite platform, there are specific usecases of randomness within the actual gameplay that feed into addiction. This includes but is not limited to opening chests, finding loot (guns and health), (previously) finding llamas, Airdrop locations, Store locations, bounties, opponent difficulty, among more. These variable components of the game give users (at random) an advantage or disadvantage in each game. No two games are the exact same. This evokes a feeling of originality and opportuntity to succeed that keeps players engaged for longer periods of time. If a player start a game off bad, that player can lean on this “randomness” factor and join a new match with the hope of getting better loot, competition, and overall luck. That being said, the luck/probabily factor in this game is highly calculated and well orchestrated in a way that makes all players (across skill levels and experience) feel like their have a good shot of winning the game theyre in. They do this by introducing skill based match making, ranked matches, and introducing purposefully bad Bots (or AI players) into matches to even out the playing field. This really intricate and invasive design makes the chance in the game very calculated and not genuinely randomlized, like poker or roulette (when hosted honestly).
That being said, I believe it’s morally permissible to use chance in games when it is the entire premise, or a small, mutually exclusive component of the game. For example, if the entire game is rolling a fair die, then by all means there is no way to game the system and its fun/equal for everyone. On the flipside, I believe it is morally impermissible to use chance in games when chance plays a major role in the gameplay of larger goals. This element of randomness will likely lead to frustration and anger.
