blue_beetle was right.

May 25, 2019 3:07 PM

Fortnite is basically a giant, endless advertisement now [Polygon] “Last year, playing Fortnite largely meant hopping onto a make-believe island in the hope of surviving against 99 other players. This year, Fortnite isn’t as divorced from the real world — there are constant tie-ins that encourage people to buy, or at least engage with brands and products. To play Fortnite in 2019 is to be enmeshed in advertisements.”

○ When Epic Games, the developer, introduced soccer skins and interactive pitches to celebrate the World Cup in summer 2018, the connection between the two felt natural: Fortnite is sports.
○ 2018 also saw the release of Fortnite’s Avengers crossover, where players could collect the Infinity Stones and become Thanos.
○ In February, Fortnite held a pre-recorded Marshmello concert, where players could dress up and emote as the electronic musician.
○ And then Fortnite introduced a Weezer-themed island in the same month, where fans could turn on a jukebox that played only Weezer tracks.
○ In May, Fortnite started teasing the inclusion of John Wick, who eventually got a mode where players could become bounty hunters.
○ This week the developers have added Jordans to the game as footwear for characters to wear in a specific game mode Downtown Drop LTM by Jordan, which features Creative artists NotNellaf and Tollmolia in the mode.

• Fortnite’s Explosion in Popularity Is Opening New Doors for Marketers [Ad Week]

“Fortnite’s success has opened doors for brands who want to get in front of millions of eyeballs through influencers. Twitch allows for a subscription service where users can pay for premium content, and Fortnite is the most popular game among subscribers. Take for example a player named “Ninja,” who streams his gaming feed through Twitch, bringing in $500,000 a month just for livestreaming on the site, he said. Ninja told Forbes that brands can advertise on a Twitch stream in a variety of ways, including banner ads, rolling ads or small videos. Companies that are more likely to do well integrating with a behemoth like Fortnite include those that would already appeal to gamers, Wisnefski said, adding that soft drink and snack food companies have successfully pandered to that demographic for years. There are products that are successfully targeted toward gamers, agreed Tyrsen, like energy drink brands that have long been endemic to gaming, but at the end of the day, a product’s success really depends on matching up with the game and how it’s played.”

• Epic Games is placing Fortnite ads on Apex Legends Google searches [GameRevolution]

“Epic Games isn’t a company to rest on its laurels, from taking Fortnite to the top of the games industry to recently launching a storefront aiming to displace Steam. However, placing Fortnite ads on Google search pages for new battle royale game Apex Legends may be Epic’s boldest move yet. According to Fortnite Intel, users who search for “Apex Legends” are being presented for an advertisement for Fortnite right at the top of the page. This is an interesting move by Epic Games. The decision shows the company has noticed Apex Legends’ popularity as the new battle royale on the block. There is no rule against using this kind of tactic in Google. In fact, it is almost encouraged, as Google offers targeted advertising as a way of attracting any desired audience. This has made the practice of attracting a rival’s audience one that has gone on for many years. In 2015, Samsung famously used the tactic against competitor Apple. The ad asked users if they’d mistakenly searched for Apple’s iPhone 6s when they should’ve searched for Samsung’s Galaxy S8.”

posted by Fizz (47 comments total)

Tangentially related: The future of AT&T is an ad-tracking nightmare hellworld
posted by hippybear at 3:44 PM on May 25, 2019 [11 favorites]

The only winning move is not to play.
posted by Pendragon at 4:03 PM on May 25, 2019 [29 favorites]

...there are constant tie-ins that encourage people to buy, or at least engage with brands and products. To play Fortnite in 2019 is to be enmeshed in advertisements.

So, emulating the internet model?
posted by Thorzdad at 4:10 PM on May 25, 2019 [4 favorites]

I mean...it's free to play. You get what you pay for. I'm totally with the people who think that this is harmful to children, but so is every other ad-blasted part of our landscape since Ronnie Reagan. As a kid, I would have killed to go to a free arcade that was wallpapered in ads. Probably because kids' TV back then was 50% video game ads, tie-ins, or adaptations. It's all deeply unhealthy, but it's not very novel.
posted by es_de_bah at 4:16 PM on May 25, 2019 [23 favorites]

it turns out that you can make a silk purse out of a sow's ear.
posted by SonInLawOfSam at 4:21 PM on May 25, 2019 [2 favorites]

○ 2018 also saw the release of Fortnite’s Avengers crossover, where players could collect the Infinity Stones and become Thanos.

Oh. I would have enjoyed that.
posted by greermahoney at 4:26 PM on May 25, 2019

This is the mainstream product placement success that feels wholly natural to the freemium space -the apotheosis of Team Fortess 2’s free hats - but it really feels like the climax of a process that was first being done back in Second Life: an integration of virtual and physical space that people have been seeking for so long. I don’t know if it’s good -and it certainly seems bad if you’re a Fortnite gameplay purist (do they exist?), in the same way all those hats really ruined TF2- , but there’s something satisfying in seeing a sci-fi vision of my youth come to pass: meat space products coexisting in 3D-avatar-based cyberspace. (It must be a weird head trip to be Neal Stephenson and William Gibson.)
posted by Going To Maine at 4:48 PM on May 25, 2019 [6 favorites]

Probably because kids' TV back then was 50% video game ads, tie-ins, or adaptations.


Back in my day (in the pre-video-game 70s), Saturday morning kids TV (i.e., cartoons and Sid & Marty Krofft shows) was saturated with toy and movie tie-ins, and what wasn’t, was commercials for chocolate-frosted sugar bombs cereal.

The more things change...
posted by darkstar at 5:04 PM on May 25, 2019 [2 favorites]

There seems to me a pretty big difference between selling toys based on the actual show in question vs just putting promotional tie ins of completely random businesses into the content.

Everything about this game sounds completely bizarre and I've purposely never watched anything about it so I can have the imaginary version I get from reading about it.
posted by bongo_x at 5:30 PM on May 25, 2019 [2 favorites]

It IS bizarre.
I watched (or at least, I tried to watch) some Fortnite superstar sponsored by some drinks company or some shit play in a tournament a month or two ago and they (the superstar and his buddy) went around smashing the environment for "mats", eventually relocating several times due to map shrinkage... Seems pretty dull so far right? BUT WAIT, THERE'S MORE!! For the Grand Finale, they started building a staircase to the moon which somehow attracted the enemies to build their own staircase to the moon... a sort of staircase building drag race that ends when you decide to shoot across to the other guy's staircase when you can finally see him? I tried getting high and watching but that just made me even more bewildered. I think I need stronger drugs to enjoy this stuff.
posted by some loser at 5:47 PM on May 25, 2019 [7 favorites]

My 13 yo son is totes done with Fortnite...

Now playing CSGO and LoL and Black Squad.

Reality is so behind the curve.
posted by Windopaene at 6:14 PM on May 25, 2019 [2 favorites]

“Manufactured Discontent and Fortnite”—Folding Ideas, 01 April 2019
posted by ob1quixote at 6:38 PM on May 25, 2019 [15 favorites]

The kiddo’s Splatoon obsession is looking better and better by comparison, TBH.
posted by Artw at 7:22 PM on May 25, 2019 [8 favorites]

The Avengers tie-in was annoying, my 9 yo son wanted to go see it, pretty easy to tell he only wanted to go because of Fortnite and I quickly shot down the idea. No complaint though, it’s still a fun free game.
posted by furtive at 7:24 PM on May 25, 2019

Can’t wait for the Fortnite Season of the Depends Adult Diaper.
posted by backseatpilot at 7:26 PM on May 25, 2019 [20 favorites]

There seems to me a pretty big difference between selling toys based on the actual show in question vs just putting promotional tie ins of completely random businesses into the content.

But random promotion of businesses and product placement in TV shows happens all the time, and has happened historically as well. I will now fail to cite examples, but the one I remember from recent-is times is when the office prominently featured Michael's trip to Sandals.
posted by Going To Maine at 7:53 PM on May 25, 2019 [1 favorite]

Also, a note that many Saturday’s kid cartoons were actually intended to serve as ads for the toy line. That is, the toy concept came first, and the show was designed to drive toy sales. So there are definitely parallels one might draw.
posted by darkstar at 8:00 PM on May 25, 2019 [4 favorites]

the real travesty here is the person in this thread who wouldn't let their 9-year-old see avengers
posted by Bwentman at 8:17 PM on May 25, 2019 [5 favorites]

greermahoney: "○ 2018 also saw the release of Fortnite’s Avengers crossover, where players could collect the Infinity Stones and become Thanos.
Oh. I would have enjoyed that."

Yes, you would have, it was so much fun. My son got to be Thanos twice, and it was a major trip. No T-snap action, alas.
posted by signal at 8:23 PM on May 25, 2019

I can't really complain about battle royale, I guess, until it starts to damage other titles like Borderlands and Halo. My own kids stopped playing Fortnite and battle royale months ago. It's so odd to me that gamers give two shits about virtual Jordans.
posted by Brocktoon at 11:34 PM on May 25, 2019

Another data point, the kiddo quite recently suddenly stopped playing Fortnite because "nobody plays Fortnite anymore." Obviously he means "nobody he knows" but for some reason it is not seen as fun any more. My personal take is that the growth/development of the underlying monetization and revenue platform is somehow attentuating something he previously found enjoyable in the game's interaction and dynamics.
posted by carter at 4:49 AM on May 26, 2019 [1 favorite]

One of the few questions my 11-year-old pupils [ESL] came up with, off the top of their young minds, was : "what's your favourite brand name ?". Last year, 2 kids sneaked into a local primary school during the holidays, and managed to destroy as much stuff as they could, Fornite-style. They were spotted on their way out by a passerby. So, I'd say that kids are vulnerable to a frightening extent to this game.
posted by nicolin at 5:19 AM on May 26, 2019

first being done back in Second Life

Before that, I remember slowly exploring AlphaWorld over a 28.8k connection in about 1995 or 1996, which according to wikipedia was a step between WebWorld and ActiveWorlds.
posted by msbrauer at 5:46 AM on May 26, 2019

managed to destroy as much stuff as they could, Fornite-style.

I’m sorry, but can you clarify how that’s different from ordinary vandalism? Did they break it all apart and build launching pads and hang-gliders out of the pieces?
posted by The Pluto Gangsta at 6:05 AM on May 26, 2019 [6 favorites]

nicolin: " and managed to destroy as much stuff as they could, Fornite-style."

So, they glided down from a flying bus and broke stuff with comically large pickaxes?
posted by signal at 6:44 AM on May 26, 2019 [9 favorites]

I feel like I end up defending Fortnite whenever I see this kind of argument, which I don't like. I mean to say that selling kids worthless, addictive crap full of ads is as old as the middle class. The industries of toys, blockbusters, comics, trading cards, arcades, sneakers, jeans, motor vehicles, unmotored vehicles, pop music etc have all exploded around the idea over the years.

And modern technology like analytics, hyper-targeted marketing, and social media totally make this stuff extra scary. But, I think a lot of the adult anxiety comes from the same place it always has: I don't understand this crap the kids are obsessing over. This game platform / music / fashion / collectible card game seems impenetrable and trashy to me, so all the negative aspects must come at no benefit.

Looking at this kind of thing and being sobered about the predatory way kids are marketed to is good. Being a little introspective about the crap you bought as a kid is good (even if you still love that crap and have found real value in it!). Realizing that we need to teach kids to be savvy, informed consumers from an early age is GREAT. Marketing towards them is only ever going to increase and become more insidious.
posted by es_de_bah at 7:27 AM on May 26, 2019 [1 favorite]

I think the point is that yeah ads have always been everywhere around content passively but you can mute them or ignore them. It’s a whole new level of psychological manipulation to make your ad the content itself, particularly a game, which are linked to motivations toward obtaining rewards.
posted by Young Kullervo at 7:53 AM on May 26, 2019 [2 favorites]

It’s a whole new level of psychological manipulation to make your ad the content itself, particularly a game, which are linked to motivations toward obtaining rewards.

This seems to be a question of degree, however. I see "a whole new level" and think of some switch being flipped, but it's really a slope, like so much else in the world. There have been dozens of branded reskinnings of Monopoly, for example, that introduce branded content as a replacement for the standard properties. That's definitely an introduction of branded content as a replacement for a core mechanic that makes (or tries to make) certain branded content seem cooler than other branded content. We just don't think about it much because it's boring and not good at it. (There's no Nikeopoly out there, I think.) The integrations that have happened in Fortnite feel new because this is something that is / was of the moment, because a video game can be complete and immersive. But ads have been integrated into game and novelty content for a while.
posted by Going To Maine at 11:36 AM on May 26, 2019 [2 favorites]

So, they glided down from a flying bus and broke stuff with comically large pickaxes?
can you clarify how that’s different from ordinary vandalism? Did they break it all apart and build launching pads and hang-gliders out of the pieces?
Well, actually the kids themselves explained their deeds by stating that they weren't fully realizing what they were doing, because it was so much like what they were doing when they were playing Fortnite.
posted by nicolin at 2:42 PM on May 26, 2019

the kids themselves explained their deeds by stating that they weren't fully realizing what they were doing, because it was so much like what they were doing when they were playing Fortnite.

Did video games also teach them to bullshit?
posted by signal at 7:00 PM on May 26, 2019 [2 favorites]

Young Kullervo: "It’s a whole new level of psychological manipulation to make your ad the content itself, particularly a game, which are linked to motivations toward obtaining rewards."

It's been said a few times before, but again, like most of us, I'm from the generation that would watch 30 minutes of the Transformers cartoon, an advertisement for Transformers toys, interspersed with advertisements for other toys and advertisements for other cartoons that were in turn advertisements for other toys...It was Advertisingception every weekday from 2:30 to 4:00 and every Saturday from 07:30 to 11:00.

I don't think this is a "whole new level," but if it is, it seems to be a reduction in advertising, not an increase. And (again, as others have said), I suspect it's just the newness of it that is setting off such alarm. This kind of advertising isn't a good thing, but it's definitely better than the situation a few decades ago.

nicolin: "Well, actually the kids themselves explained their deeds by stating that they weren't fully realizing what they were doing, because it was so much like what they were doing when they were playing Fortnite."

If they didn't fully realize that breaking into a school and destroying things was a seriously bad thing, there's a severe underlying issue. This isn't "Jackie Chan made it look so easy, that's why I broke both my ankles jumping off this roof" territory, it's "I stabbed her to impress Slenderman" territory (though obviously of a much lower severity of outcome).
posted by Bugbread at 8:04 PM on May 26, 2019 [2 favorites]

Advertising to children shouldn't be legal
posted by vibratory manner of working at 8:07 PM on May 26, 2019 [3 favorites]

What was that driving game back in the 80s or 90s, I can't remember if it was arcade or console, where the billboards along the racing route were advertisements?
posted by hippybear at 8:19 PM on May 26, 2019

Wait, hold up. Why Weezer? This is the most confusing thing about any of this to me.

Is Weezer actually popular with the Fornight demo or are they just being shoehorned into the game?
posted by loquacious at 10:08 PM on May 26, 2019 [1 favorite]

Wait, hold up. Why Weezer? This is the most confusing thing about any of this to me.

Honestly, this is the existential question of my generation.
posted by hippybear at 10:11 PM on May 26, 2019 [5 favorites]

loquacious: "Is Weezer actually popular with the Fornight demo or are they just being shoehorned into the game?"

Shoehorned, but the question is why shoehorned. My guess is that it's a misguided effort to bring in the parents of the Fortnite demo, because we're the demo that liked Weezer back in the day.

I don't think it was a bad idea by Epic, though, but a bad idea by Weezer management, and Epic was like, "okay, sure, we'll take your ad money, whatever."

The sweet spot is really the "stuff popular with both the kids and the parents." Both me and my kids had a lot of fun with the Avengers stuff earlier this year.
posted by Bugbread at 10:36 PM on May 26, 2019

So, what I'm hearing is Fortnite is actually the fault of Weezer and fans. Now that makes much more sense.
posted by loquacious at 10:45 PM on May 26, 2019 [2 favorites]

I never cared for Weezer and I have no interest in Fortnite. I won't lie, I did think some of the toys I never had as a kid looked pretty cool as cartoons but the commercials for the toys usually left me thinking how dumb it was to watch another kid play with toys on a staged set with plants and boulders instead of in a living room or a bedroom.

Fortnite might look much better than Asteroids but having never really cared for battle royale PvP I prefer a game that leaves dying at the hands of another on a more personal basis. Something like chess or Maze Craze. If you want to make a group suffer, get good at poker. It is never to early to teach your child that the odds matter and knowing how to lie (frugally and with forethought of the consequences) and how to recognize liars is an important life skill as an adult.
posted by Ignorantsavage at 1:20 AM on May 27, 2019 [1 favorite]

I honestly can't figure whether Epic would pay Marvel for using Thanos to hype Fortnite or Marvel would pay Epic for advertising Endgame.

The parity makes that one seem more like a crossover than an instance of ads invading the game.
posted by straight at 5:26 AM on May 27, 2019

hippybear: "What was that driving game back in the 80s or 90s, I can't remember if it was arcade or console, where the billboards along the racing route were advertisements?"

All of them?
posted by chavenet at 9:10 AM on May 27, 2019 [1 favorite]

chavenet: "All of them?"

I think your sense of time is off. The 80s and 90s is pre-XBox, pre-Playstation 2 era. While I'm sure there may have been a Playstation, Gamecube, or arcade racing game with real ads, it would have been, by far, the exception, not the rule. That kind of real in-game advertising didn't take off until around the time of the XBox 360 and Playstation 2/3, so early to mid 00s.
posted by Bugbread at 4:27 PM on May 27, 2019

What was that driving game back in the 80s or 90s, I can't remember if it was arcade or console, where the billboards along the racing route were advertisements?

Pole Position was released in 1982 and featured billboards advertising real companies.
posted by ActingTheGoat at 11:59 PM on May 27, 2019 [3 favorites]

Now that I'm an uncle, I am finally being exposed to the shitty world of modern kids' media. I remember cartoons from my own childhood that were transparent marketing vehicles (with the obvious exception of the dramatic masterpiece that was Street Sharks). Now we have fucking Paw Patrol (my hatred of Paw Patrol is only exceeded by my hatred of the shows that rip off Paw Patrol, like that shitty one where they're birds instead of dogs). All it takes is for one kid to be playing with a Paw Patrol thing, and then they all want them; this is exactly how my nephew got snared. I imagine this isn't totally different from how it used to be.

I think ads in games do kind of take things to a different level, though. I mean, Transformers was an ad for Transformers, but it wasn't an ad for unrelated shit cooked up in a business deal. Besides that, a game is immersive on a totally different level. On one level, I'm glad kids are having fun with these tie-ins, but I mean -- they're also more effective marketing when they're fun. That's the point of modern games: the fun is in all the extra things. It's the addictive, loot-driven nature of things, where developers introduce fun things in controlled quantities so you have to work for them. Remember, these aren't just real-world objects they're advertising. It's also exclusive in-game content and other things that are calculated to be desirable and genuinely fun.

Remember America's Army? It came out in 2002 as a free and supposedly totally accurate military game. It was also developed and released by the US Army. There was some talk about it being propaganda, but mostly I remember it getting some good reviews. People certainly talked about it. I even downloaded it, just to see what it was like. I mean, it was free. And of course -- that's how the son and grandson of committed anti-war types ended up playing a game that glorified the military, in the early post-9/11 years. Fortunately for me, my computer was so shitty that I couldn't get very far, and eventually I gave up. But jeez. The worst thing is an ad that's fun to be around.

Also, fuck Paw Patrol.
posted by shapes that haunt the dusk at 2:18 AM on May 28, 2019 [1 favorite]

Also, fuck Paw Patrol.
posted by shapes that haunt the dusk

APAB.
posted by fiercecupcake at 8:49 AM on May 28, 2019 [2 favorites]

According to everyone I know under the age of 21: eponysterical
posted by ElGuapo at 8:03 PM on May 30, 2019 [1 favorite]

Not to abuse the edit button - everyone I know under the age of 21 can get off my lawn
posted by ElGuapo at 8:05 PM on May 30, 2019 [1 favorite]

“With a bit of luck, his life was ruined forever. Always thinking that just behind some narrow door in all of his favorite bars, men in red woolen shirts are getting incredible kicks from things he’ll never know building staircases.”
posted by some loser at 4:31 AM on June 1, 2019 [1 favorite]