Fortnite is one of the most popular and well known games of all time, and that’s for a reason. Developed by Epic Games, Fortnite is battle royale game I’ve poured over two-thousand hours into over several years, spanning PC, consoles, and mobile platforms. Primarily targeting teens and young adults, Fortnite leverages a “live service” business model that provides constant content updates, events, and an ever-evolving cosmetics shop with new collaborations with icons like Marvel and Star Wars seemingly every week. After reading the two readings from this week, “Designing Chance: Addiction by Design” and “Redefining Live Service Games as the Living Dead,” it’s clearer than ever how this game’s design could foster addictive behaviors through strategic use of randomness, monetization tactics, and social pressures. I, for one, can definitely call myself a victim of this.
At its core, Fortnite’s monetization revolves around the sale of cosmetics and battle passes, neither of which directly impact gameplay. Initially, this model seems fairer compared to direct pay-to-win mechanics we see in other games, however, subtle psychological tactics push players toward making impulsive purchases. The game’s shop rotates daily, creating this artificial scarcity that triggers FOMO. I actually recall going to CVS to buy V-Bucks without my parents knowing so that I could buy a skin in case it didn’t return. There have even been moments of outcry when old, “rare” skins are brought back in the item shop, killing the scarcity.
Epic further persuades player spending through randomized daily quests in Battle Royale. Each login session presents a random set of challenges and rewards, echoing the unpredictability of slot machines. These challenges and Battle Pass challenges give players these “quick” and “small” challenges to make players play at least a few hours every day to get all of the challenge rewards and complete the Battle Pass. Epic Games even makes it such that you can make your “money back” through V-buck rewards if you complete the Battle Pass, but this requires you to spend far too much time on the game. The randomness of shop item rotations and reward systems replicate that feeling of unpredictability, leveraging the dopamine hit that comes from unexpected positive outcomes. For instance, leveling up the battle pass often feels unpredictable in terms of the exact timing of rewards, prompting players to continue playing “just one more game.”
These addictive loops are further enforced by social mechancis. Fortnite is fundamentally a social game, with squads, duos, and events constantly pushing you to join friends online. This feeling of peer pressure combined with limited-time event skins, like those for concerts or Marvel movie collabs, creates a strong social incentive to keep playing and keep buying. Unlike single player games, the presence of friends and a broader Fortnite community that is one of the most popular games on YouTube and streaming platforms as well, applies external pressure on players to participate in spending trends and join in on the collective hype.
Comparing Fortnite to other chance-based games highlights crucial differences. Slot machines, as mentioned in the reading, deliver frequent small rewards to create an illusion of progress, while Fortnite uses infrequent but highly desirable cosmetic rewards. Unlike pure gambling, Fortnite’s rewards are purely aesthetic, yet the psychological mechanisms of scarcity, unpredictability, and social reinforcement are the same. This live-service model of Fornite with a Battle Pass has become so prominent that this is in effectively every battle royale game and even in completely different games like NBA 2k. Fortnite’s randomness and its strategic use of limited-time offers represent the most compelling ways in which the game might encourage addictive behavior.
Ethically, using randomness in games isn’t inherently problematic. It does becomes morally questionable when games deliberately obscure information or exploit social dynamics to invisibly pressure spending, which Fortnite does subtly through shop rotations and limited-time skins. If I could think of an ethical improvement, letting players see clearly when certain items might return could alleviate the anxiety-driven purchases, but this could be counterracted by simply making items rare. Additionally, introducing spending caps, parental controls, or reminders of cumulative spending might protect younger players from unintentionally overspending.
Fortnite separates itself from other live service games due to its sheer popularity. Unlike games like Clash of Clans, which rely heavily on gameplay progression tied to payments, Fortnite remains primarily cosmetic, preserving its competitive integrity. This puts Fortnite in a unique position ethically, avoiding direct gameplay exploitation but still using persuasive psychological tactics to maintain player engagement.
While Fortnite has provided me with memorable gaming experiences, it’s important to recognize the ways its design can lead to addictive behaviors. It was cool to look at the game in this new way, observing how randomness, scarcity, and social dynamics operate within Fortnite, impacting how we play, why we play, and when not to play.
