Fortnite coming on Android: a clever choice!
Fortnite coming on Android: a clever choice!
Fortnite is THE game of the year 2018! If you haven’t heard about it, you’re not derived from this planet! Whether you like it or not, whether you play it not… you have to know about it! Fortnite is everywhere! Literally! You go on YouTube or Twitch, and it’s the most streamed game. Even at school, kids have been using their school wifi to play, causing a few issues there!
Well, let’s just say, this is not going to stop just yet. Fortnite is known to be a cross-platform game. So, after being able to play it on the PS4, the Xbox, the Nintendo Switch, iOS, Fortnite is now taking on... Android. This may sound like a funny idea, but we have to admit that in fact it’s just a clever one, and it had to be the next step they were going to take. Why? It’s simple. Fortnite is a free game only supported by V-Bucks and Battle Passes which you have to purchase. So by launching on Android, Epic Games reaches even more people… which means even more money... After all, business is business!
OK, where do you download it?
Another specificity of Epic Games here! Fortnite will not be on the Play Store because... they take 30% of revenue made by the game. And let’s be honest, when you’re a business you have to look at that too, although we’re not sure they should be too worried about their income at the moment, as they make over $310 million per month!
Also, be aware that only just the latest mobile phones will be able to run Fortnite (like Samsung Galaxy S7 and above). Which means that there won’t be a lot of players on this platform.
So, how to download Fortnite on your mobile phone?
First, you’ll need to register to the beta.
Once the registration has been confirmed, you’ll be able to download it on your mobile phone and open it. Make sure you have enough space available (around 2.3Go) which might mean you’ll have to delete some old selfies! You’ll have to chose your priorities, Fortnite on mobile phone or selfies?!
Can you actually play on mobile?
Mobile phone games are usually known to be very standard, and not made for very precise games, so why would you want to play Fortnite on a mobile phone? You’ll basically have no chance to do a #top 1 on there, and you’ll most likely have no kills, or hardly any. And we’re not talking about the difficulty to go from building mode to shooting mode on a touch screen! You’ll be dead before you can actually change mode! You certainly cannot show any skills when playing Fortnite on mobile phones!
OK, but are we all e-sport professionals here? No! As we watch Ninja or others on Twitch, we tend to forget that Fortnite is a game! It is entertainment before everything else. Some people, like us, play a game for the fun of it, and not necessarily because we want to become an e-sport pro!
Having said that, we tried to play on a mobile phone for a couple of hours, and it is quite frustrating! We found that you just cannot really enjoy the game fully, as you just keep dying, not being able to build correctly, or changing weapon quickly enough.
So who is it for ?
The Android version is perfect for younger kids or people unable to buy a computer or a console. Or even for those in a waiting room, and just bored! Epic Games reaches out to more kids. Will school wi-fi bandwidths be falling even more? Probably! Will they purchase a lot of V-Bucks more easily? Probably! Will parents know about it? Probably not! So, was it a good commercial move? Yes. But, was it a good moral move? Well, that’s not for us to say. Let’s just hope that kids will do some homework too!
And after all… Epic Games had to follow their legendary rivals, PUBG, down the Android path!
