Two college students won a tournament at Fortnite . During the award ceremony, the duo stated that they do not like the direction of the game and that they are quitting Fortnite. The clip goes viral. This is really bad PR for Fortnite and Epic.
This is the scene: The players Mister.Lemon and KACO0 won the “Collegiate Starleague Nationals”, a league where college teams compete against each other. The two winners represented the University of Georgia.
At the award ceremony, the host asks for a statement about what the duo plans to do next, whether they are now going to switch to the online scene, but one of the players says:
“Honestly, we don’t really like the game anymore. I don’t want to lie, but we’ll see what happens. Epic is messing it up a bit with how they balance things.”
The host laughs during the response, makes “stop it” gestures, and then asks the other winner if he has a better answer.
But the partner says as well: “We’ve decided that we no longer want to play competitive Fortnite. So we will turn to other things.”
The host then adds: “I like that, you stop when you’re on top.”
After that, the two receive rings and a check for $6,000 (about €5,370).
That’s why the scene is a bit special: The clip has already gained over 414,000 views on Twitch, even though it has only been live for 13 hours. It is going viral.
On reddit , people are discussing the scene. Most users apparently applaud the students. There are comments like:
- It’s certainly bold to say something like that on stage.
- If the better players said something like that, then the developers clearly messed up.
- If it were about $600,000 instead of $6,000, they would surely keep playing.
Why is the clip getting so many views? Currently, Fortnite is receiving a lot of criticism in the competitive scene for some decisions. This clear statement during the tournament seems to have struck a chord.
Additionally, many likely view it as brave that the students are making a statement at such a formal occasion.
That’s why the clip is difficult for Epic: The symbolic power of the clip is strong – they are receiving an award, so they are the winners, yet they are still dissatisfied with Fortnite.
It can be assumed that the negative clip resonates particularly with a target audience of college students who play Fortnite. The clip is likely to be seen by many who follow Fortnite only tangentially and are not deeply embedded in the “competitive scene” where criticism of Fortnite has been loud for weeks.
If over 400,000 people see something like this, it sends a signal on a large stage. One can be curious whether Epic will change anything here. Recently, it did not look like it.
Just a few days ago, Epic commented on the ongoing criticism of their recent decisions. However, Epic only explained why they made the directional decisions and stated that they will not deviate from them.
So bleibt Ihr bei Fortnite auf dem Laufenden: Mehr Infos und News zum Spiel findet Ihr auch auf unserer Fortnite-Seite auf Facebook. Wenn Ihr noch Mitspieler für ein paar Runden sucht, schaut doch in unserer Fortnite-Gruppe vorbei.
