Former Epic Games Director Says He Tried To Axe Fortnite

It's true, nobody plays Fortnite for Save the World so without the Battle Royale, it would be a dead project.

I mean, was he wrong to want to cancel it? As it was, with Save the World, the game was a flop. The Fortnite we have today is basically an entirely different game. Only made because of the BR hype PUBG created.

I'm still amazed this game is as popular as it is.

I still don't get how this drab game saw even mild success and spawned a wave of copycats.

Don't tease us like this

Honestly, I don't really see the hype about Fortnite. I think it's really boring.

@Fazermint PUBG spawned copycats. This game basically copied them.

And Epic games clearly didn't mind canceling Paragons to get sone BR cash from fortnite :/

"What would gaming be like right now if the insanely popular title Fortnite didn't exist?"

Literally exactly the same but without Fortnite. It's popular, but I don't think it's had any influence. It hasn't even been out for very long.

I can completely understand him. Despite the financial success, this is a very shallow game compared to previous epic games. So from a creators point of view, he did everything right to try to cancel it, from a shareholders point of view everyone should be happy he failed

@AlternateButtons well the genre gave us tetris 99 so it's all good

@AlternateButtons - Yeah but I actually enjoy Battlerite's royale mode. And that wouldn't have happened without the popularity of a new genre.

The genre isn't as bad as the most popular game, I am thankful Fortnite exists cause SOMEONE is going to make that genre better.

Never ever like Fortnite at all. 😒
The popularity that really absurd in my eyes.
I still have my sane to play better games than Fortnite.

I've been playing it a little bit since I got my Switch a few days ago. I like it alright, but I don't like the whole building aspect of it, though.

At the moment, I'm downloading Paladins and hoping Realm Royal comes to Switch soon.

@Kalmaro Ah, I stand corrected. PUGB is even worse, I hear.

Wish he had, really don’t get the hype.

well it's a shame he didn't in succeed in cancelling it, now look at how bad it is now.

Before fortnite was call of duty. Halo before that. Quake, unreal, team fort. Counter strike, etc...shooters have been getting increasingly popular over the years, even if fortnite was canceled, someone would have made something just like it.

Some people thinking they are above everyone else just because they don't like fortnite... Haha.

I like to play it in quick brust every now and then, but I really suck at it.
And just because it's popular doesn't mean it is bad. I like the look of the game, runs smoothly on most platforms, and it has very distinct characters. Buy it with save the world and you never have to spent any money to get stuff (you get 500 vbuck or so a day just by logging on) and the game is very generous. Even without save the world, you can get 100 vbucks every 10 levels.
I still play pubg mobile cause the controls are awesome! Helps me get better with gyro as well.

If Fortnite didn't exist, either...
1) PUBG would still be the dominant battle royale game
2) Some other game would have copied PUBG to become the new dominant battle royale game

In other words, PUBG started everything, whether Epic wants to admit that or not

@Donutman
We probably would have gotten more shooters like Doom 2016 but battle royale started to explode after its release so it’s impact is mostly felt in the new retro shooters like Dusk and Prodeus.

@Bunkerneath - I can relate to this. I feel the exact same way over Metroid Prime.

Fornite might of been canceled...that's the happiest thing I've heard in a long time!

We would’ve gotten an Unreal Tournament BR game. But hey, at least Gears 5 will still have horde mode. 😂
I’m more interested in his position that it wouldn’t have passed standards.

I love the comments from people who think it’s “cool” to hate a game so much they wish it didn’t exist, and even worse are the asinine commments from people who say they “don’t get it” and wish it had been canceled. I’m by no means a huge fan of Fortnite, but to wish a game didn’t exist simply because you don’t personally like it is beyond childish, especially when so many other people clearly enjoy it. Nobody is forcing you to play. Grow up.

@SalvorHardin we are getting sequels to doom and wolfenstein last I checked. I am happy that apex also exists. Paladins is great, and I would love to see an unreal 2004 remake or something. Gaming today means all these games exist, and I can play most of them on my switch

Don't worry Rod. It didn't pass my bar either. I would have cancelled it too. What we forget is that although it is a sh**ty game... (and it is)... most peoples taste in video games is for the birds.

Fortnite is total crap and anyone who plays it is a moran.

Now excuse me, it's time for me to get a ride to the park so I can play a little Pokemon Go!

I don’t see the point in the game. Wish it was axed. Kids and adults rather be home playing this than going out with friends.

@Fazermint fortnite is a copycat of other gamers

@thesilverbrick when I see 8 year old kids who can’t even pay attention to their coaches at sporting games and practices, then yeah it’s ok for me to wish it didn’t exist. I’ve never seen such a fad like this just consume the lives of kids the way this has. Ive played tons of games growing up, so I’m not the person to go and say games are bad for kids, but I will say I’ve been a gamer since the NES and never has there been a time where a game, or games in general have taken up so much of the mind share of kids as this game has

@graysoncharles the problem lies in thinking of it as a genre. It should be a mode that’s included in full fledged titles. Just like a death match or capture the flag. The problem is this free to play crap where they just keep pumping out junk to buy for their mediocre game.

@jly1987 Pokémon Gen 1 and Minecraft were both bigger fads that consumed children's lives than Fortnite.

Shows what he knew I guess. Lol

@NIN10DOXD no, they weren’t. I was a kid when gen 1 came out. Kids played Pokémon in free time and I’m the school yard. They weren’t standing aloof as baseballs flew by their head because they were dancing over by 3rd base. They were messing up simple wrestling moves because they were trade Pokémon instead of listening to the coach. I was there from the ground up when that happened. Having a child myself, I’m witnessing all these things that most definitely weren’t happening back when Pokémon came out in the states

Came for the comments. They did not disappoint.

@jly1987 Maybe the bigger concern is why do 8 year olds in your scenario have a phone on them, let alone while they’re supposed to be listening to adults?

@HobbitGamer didn’t say they had a phone. I said they are lost in space doing fortnite dances and pretending to play fortnite instead of paying attention to the game or their coaches. It was a response to the gentleman who tried to say that Pokemon gen1 and Minecraft were bigger fads than fortnite. With the annecdotal evidence I’ve seen raising a child, talking with other parents and being an involved parent, and when taking my own childhood into accoun, I don’t believe that to be true at all. Kids talked about Pokémon back then. They traded when they could they played the cards when they could, but Pokemon didn’t consume every aspect of kids lives back then

@graysoncharles nope, it’s just a mode. The sooner that people realize that and expect more out of their games, the sooner you will get fully fleshed games and not one multiplayer mode marketed as a game. COD made a battle Royale mode, so did battlefield. That’s what I want to see out of battle Royale. Same as shooters have a suite of modes including TDM, capture the flag, control point matches. Expect more from a game, not less

I can definitely respect Fortnite's found success without having to be a fan myself. If it wasnt that, it would've been something. And there's always a chance it could've been miles more annoying than the Battle Royale genre.

@graysoncharles well first, that’s literally what it is. BR started off as a mod of a game. Even PUBG in its design feels very much like a clone of the Day Z mod everyone was playing. Fortnite took their failing game and made it into a battle Royale, then just started throwing dances and skins in it. They are filling the game to make it a playground of dances, cosmetic items and mediocre gunplay. That’s the problem with fortnite. The building is a great element that makes it stand out from others, but most of all the entire element of 3rd person shooting just feels lackluster. It feels exactly what it is. Something that was molded into something else. I’m not opposed to battle royale. My personal opinion is that as far as gameplay goes, Apex Legends is the king of BR. This is the first BR that plays like it was built from the ground up by a AAA studio, and not just a rip-off of something else or a last minute change. My main problem with apex legends is the fact that like fortnite, it’s one mode. It’s just like if all of a sudden, next years COD was free, but the only thing you could play was TDM

Still trying to figure out why this game is so popular. I still say it is only because it's free.

Outside of that, it is just an okay 3rd person shooter that is only fun 1/10 of the time. With the remaining 9/10 of the time being running around smashing things and looking for a weapon you probably wont get to use for more than 10 seconds.

But if you enjoy it, all the power to you. Have fun!

@jly1987 Pokemon was just as bad tbh.

fortnite, I'm too old for this game.

@jly1987 Blame their parents for not regulating their gaming, not the game itself.

I really wish he'd gotten his way.

It’s a huge moneymaker for sure who knows what would have taken off in its place? I thought pubg was actually the originator. I do remember the pubg guys were trying to sue the fortnite guys for getting in on their idea. I never could get into this style of game tho. Too many micro transactions and flossing guys in tomato masks for me.

Can we axe it now?

Fortnite seems fun if you are playing with friends. It’s got that sandboxy feel with the amount of stuff they have put in the game. Video games certainly have changed a lot since the popularity of these sorts of online shooters. The same people that play Fortnite regularly are not going to sit down and play something like Hollow Knight for hours.

I’ve just played so many of these online shooters, going all the way back to Valve’s Counter Strike in the late 90s. I grew tired of those sorts of games over the years.

For some kids stuff like Fortnite is their Counter Strike. I get it in that sense.

@AlternateButtons You seem upset.

@jly1987 Then people need to learn how to parent their kids instead of relying on companies to do it. If they don't pay attention, take away their games. Simple as that.

@jly1987 Fortnite has more than one mode. Besides Save the World, there are the Creative and team deathmatch modes as well.

Why wasn't it? Tell me you Fortnite players would still play if you had to pay £30/$30

I really don't care about fortnite, but at the same time I don't see it as this horrible evil thing that cynical adults think should die. Its as if they forget when they were kids and their parents were saying the same crap about pokemon.

Fortnite must be fun or people wouldn't be playing it, it may not be for me but then again I have oddball tastes.

Prince Harry would have loved this.

@jly1987 (#46) I can't believe you've been replying to comments talking about 'modes' with comments talking about 'mods'. You do realise that a modus and a modification are two very different things?

Also, stop trying to shift the blame to a game. Kids haven't been paying attention anywhere since forever because their imagination runs wild, not because a game or media franchise has eaten their brains. With Pokémon, they were (and still are) not just trading Pokémon, but also pretending to be Pokémon masters all the time. When Call of Duty and the like were at their peak, kids were pretending to pew-pew everyone all the time.

Played it once. I just died and got ridiculed by the people on voice chat.

I also hated that I couldn't customise my avatar (which was also female).

The Hacivat DLC was completely bizarre and out of left-field though. Hacivat is one half of the Hacivat and Karagöz traditional Turkish shadow play which dates back to the Ottoman period. While they're well-known in their homeland (and still revered by the oldies), it escapes me that a Western developer would incorporate what is internationally obscure into one of the world's most popular games.

And if the bloody costume didn't cost some AU$15 (!!!!!), I may have been tempted to take the bait.

Fortnite is the most successful professional asset flip the industry has ever seen.

It was a wave defense game at some point.

this man would have been a legend if he got FortShite axed

"I don't like Fortnite so I hate it and blame it for all of society's ills" Just so you know you all saying that sort of thing are coming closer to becoming those boomers who call Pokemon "the Devil's game" and who think playing a video game makes you a criminal gangster. Not necessarily the right direction to move in.

I don't care about people who dislike things because they're popular - that's about the worst reason to judge something, because a bunch of people who have nothing to do with the thing are obnoxious. What surprises me is the people who are surprised that Fortnite is popular when it's not very good. What it takes to make something popular is often very different from what it takes to make something good. Fortnite is the McDonald's of gaming: it's cheap, addicting, everyone eats there, and they advertise everywhere. There's significantly better beef than a McDonald's hamburger, but it's harder to find, more expensive, and people disagree over what makes the best beef. McDonald's is popular. A gourmet filet mignon with a glass of finely aged red wine is good. But I still have McDonald's more often than filet mignon.

@jly1987 I was a kid during Gen 1 Pokémon too and it definitely was. Cable and local news was dominated by stories that promoted panic over Pokémon's effect on children and televangelists were accusing it of being satanic while adverts and merchandise were everywhere.

@ALinkttPresent It's been out for almost 2 years.

@NotTelevision Hey! I own hollow knight and I also play fortnite a lot. Not everyone is so closed-minded.

I have no interest in the game but I would never want something that people enjoy to fail. My daughter loves it. Now if it were broken, impossible to enjoy without pay-to-win tactics or something like that, sure, it would be a bad product. As it stands, Fortnite does what it does and does it well enough to be loved by many. I'm just not one of them, but kudos for its success.

I still can't understand for the life of me the wild success of this game. It's not that it's especially bad, but there's nothing particularly good about it. It's a generic group shooter that would have been abandoned shovelware on PC in the 90's. I'm still not sure that there actually is a reason it's so popular other than that it's popular because it's popular.

@Ttimer5 Im right there with you. I have no idea why people have so much hate for it.

Personally, I like games. The games that I don't like, I don't play! Simple as that.