At this point, I don’t think anyone can argue that, whether we like it or not, ‘Fortnite‘ has been the most important video game and the most absolutely illogical phenomenon of the decade. Since its release in 2017 until now, it has become the pinnacle of everything: there is no franchise that doesn’t want to go through – or has gone through – its jaws, and both LEGO and ‘Rock Band’ have found a second life in the game. But have you ever wondered how it was born?
Take me to the Citadel, please
It all started when Epic was about to launch their new game, a cooperative game that was going to be called ‘Fortnite: Save the world’. But then they noticed ‘Player Unknown’s Battlegrounds‘, which brought together a hundred people in each match. Who wouldn’t want so many people playing your video game at the same time?
And then the magic happened, on an Uber trip. It’s as simple as that: on the way to Disney, they decided to bring back the original team, put a Battle Royale in ‘Fortnite’ and turn it into a success. There was only one problem: the meeting was in three hours and they needed a document to guide people on what to do. And so, in the back seat of an Uber, they wrote the foundations of what we now know as ‘Fortnite’.
But how? What was going to differentiate them? What was the starting point? While they were asking themselves, a school bus slipped by their side in the traffic, and they thought: that’s it. Decided. The players are going to ride a bus through the sky, and jump wherever they want on the map. Yes, okay, it all started with a copy of ‘PUBG’, but… What game doesn’t copy another, even a little, to evolve?
We can learn a lesson from all this: when you ride in the back of an Uber, instead of looking at your phone, look out the windows: you never know when you’ll come up with the idea that will make you a millionaire!
