Fortnite Battle Royale

The Chapter 4 lobby in Fortnite

Genre	Third-Person Shooter Battle Royale
Gamming Style	Battle Royale
Platform	Windows PC PlayStation 4 PlayStation 5 Xbox One Xbox One S Xbox One Series X/S Nintendo Switch/Switch Lite Android
Release Date	September 26, 2017
Developer	Epic Games
Publisher	Epic Games
Website	Fortnite

Fortnite: Battle Royale is a video game developed and published by Epic Games. It was released in early access on September 26, 2017. Fortnite: Battle Royale is a game in which 100 players fight to be the final player (or team) remaining using various guns, materials, and items found across the island.

Game

Building

The key feature that Fortnite: Battle Royale boasts over other games within the same genre is the ability to build walls, floors, stairs, and pyramids with which players may defend themselves. Players may find three types of materials within various structures on the island - namely wood, stone, and metal.

Building Material	Icon	Build Speed	HP	Flammable?
Wood		Fastest	140	Yes
Stone		Medium	400	No
Metal		Slowest	600	No

Interestingly, a mode called Zero Build was introduced on March 29, 2022. This mode took away the ability to build and remains in the game to this day. In fact, Zero Build mode brought many players back to the game

Business Model

Fortnite: Battle Royale is a freemium game. This means that the game itself is available for free to download and play, but players can purchase different outfits, harvesting tools, wraps, emotes, and bundles via the item shop. The item shop selection rotates daily, and items within the shop can be purchased using an in-game currency known as V-Bucks. The primary way in which Epic Games monetizes Fortnite is through these in-game microtransactions.
By 2021, Fortnite had grossed $20 billion off its microtransactions alone.

Ethical Implications

Emote Copyright Issues

The aforementioned emotes have been the source of many controversies, specifically relating to the "theft" of popular dances. A large number of dances have been stolen by Epic Games for Fortnite - 2 Milly's signature dance (the Milly Rock), Alfonso Ribeiro's signature dance from The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, the floss dance performed by Russell Horning, and many more. This theft prompted a debate across the internet on whether a dance can be copyrighted. According to the U.S. Copyright Office, "individual dance movements or dance steps by themselves are not copyrightable". The Copyright Office lays out rules that state that choreography and pantomime are only registrable for copyright if they are "fixed in a tangible medium of expression in such a way that reveals the movements in sufficient detail to permit the work to be performed in a consistent and uniform manner".

Children and Microtransactions

There have also been numerous documented cases in which children were found spending their parents' money on V-Bucks. This is not an isolated case, as children have also been known to spend large amounts of money on video games in the past
One particular case featured a child who spent approximately $300 of his mother's money to purchase 49,300 V-Bucks. This may be the case because Fortnite lacks a "confirm purchase" button in western versions of the game. However, it was announced in 2019 that Fortnite had plans to introduce an "undo purchase" button. This change is reflected in the game today, via the "cancel a purchase" and "return a purchase" features.