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It's true that Epic Games' Fortnite Battle Royale is not as popular as it once used to be. The complaints with the competitive aspect of the game are at an all-time high, and Valorant's official launch has done much in putting Fortnite as an esport under much scrutiny.
Not only has the battle royale lost some of its average player base to Riot's new shooter, but many of the Fortnite professional players and streamers have also shifted base.
The rise and fall of Fortnite as a video game and as an esport is a rather intriguing one. There are a lot of things that Epic Games got right with their IP, and a lot of which they didn't. And it is the lack of competitive integrity that is pushing the players into the open arms of Valorant.
Fortnite: The Accidental Esport
You would be wondering why are we calling Fortnite an accidental esport. Surely a game that is only played online, boasting an incredibly robust and thriving player base with all-time high Twitch viewership numbers, would have an equally successful competitive scene, right?
Well, for Fortnite, the situation was slightly different than what you will find in other typical 'esports ready' games like CS: GO, Call of Duty, and Overwatch.
When Epic Games decided to give Fortnite an esports scene, the player base did initially welcome it with open arms. However, the professionals soon realized that there were many aspects of the game, which made it an outcast in the esports world, and not even fit to have a competitive scene.
According to a Reddit post made in 2018, titled Fortnite will never be an esport, a user who goes by the name 'JalapenoBridger', goes into a lot of depth as to why esports for Fortnite is a bad idea.
He talks about some of the unique aspects in Fortnite, which, even though being the exact features that make the game so very fun, are also the reasons which are ruining its competitive integrity.
The Reddit user talks about the aspects of 'Bloom,' 'Spray Patterns,' 'Building' and 'Weapon Classes,' along with the features that are currently wrong with them.
At first glance, these various points, and the argument that JalapenoBridger raises seem entirely fixable. In just a few patches and updates, Epic can improve the professional quality of the game by ten folds.
So why is Fortnite still considered an accidental, and often a forced esport? The answer to this question is in the conclusive paragraph of the post, where JalapenoBridger says that:
"Obviously, I know that the majority of this will never be implemented (especially the last section). That's why the title of this is "Fortnite will never be an ESport." I believe that Epic will never take the necessary steps to be an ESport. Should they take the steps, though? In my opinion, yes, all of these things would be positive changes. But since the majority of players are extremely casual players, they probably would hate these changes, and I highly doubt that Epic would change this much about the game this late into the game, especially considering that most would dislike these changes. And that, my friends, is why Fortnite will never be an ESport."
And sure enough, two years later, Epic Games is yet to do anything substantial about the competitive aspects of the game.
Epic's first Fortnite tournament was an epic fail
Let's take a trip down memory lane, shall we?
Back in 2018, when Fortnite had its first-ever Major Esports Tournament, it failed miserably, and every aspect of the competition felt like a botched farce through which players were forced to sit through.
In this Reddit post by Fortnite4RAM, the user says that "Fortnite hosted the first major eSports tournament yesterday. This turned out to be a disaster and even had to be stopped. Spectators on Twitch were disappointed with Lags and the boring style of the participants. The price was about $250,000. In my opinion, Fortnite Esports can't be played in IN TEAMS. Because this leads to player hiding all the time and being boring."
From the very onset of the competitive scene, Fortnite esports was labeled by many as 'boring.'
Now, if we're going to be proper samaritans, and look at Fortnite's first botched tournament, as something 'that was bound to happen,' and that 'it's a stepping stone for the devs to better the scene' then we will be very much in our rights to do so. And as Fortnite fans, we can even go as far as to forgive Epic for the shenanigans that transpired during the tournament.
However, what was unforgivable was Epic's laid back and lackluster attitude towards the competitive scene of Fortnite, and how it continued and went on for months.
The very fact that there were planes in competitive play, along with the much-coveted Infinity Blade, in a tournament that had thousands of dollars and careers on the line, was the perfect recipe for disaster.
And that is what the esports scene of Fortnite is: 'a disaster.'
Epic Games releases meta-breaking updates before every tournament
In the video 'Fortnite is NOT an Esport', Esports Talk gives us some sound reasoning as to why the Fortnite competitive scene is in such shambles.
If the devs are going to be releasing game-breaking updates right before every major tournament, then where is the competitive integrity of the game?
Changing your stats at the very last moment, and reorienting an entire squad to the new changes, and throwing every effort and hard work you have done so far out the window is not something an esports team wants to go through.
Esports Talks hints at the 2019 Season 2 updates of planes, mechs, and swords, which just came out of nowhere and broke the game.
And this 'patch before tournament' policy that Epic has was not isolated in 2019 itself. Even after a lot of backlash from the professional players, the policy has trickled into 2020 as well.
Esports Talk does another take on the matter, but this time compares it with Riot's first-person shooter Valorant, and how it has already become a better esport than Fortnite ever was.
Jake Lucky hints at the fact that, during the FaZe Clan Valorant Invitational, the new Agent Killjoy was disabled. The Agent was released during Act 2 of Valorant, which was on the 4th of August, a few days before the FaZe Clan invitational took place.
This means that there was not much time for the devs to playtest the Agent on the professional stage, and Riot made the right call of disabling her for the tournament.
Jake Lucky applauded this step from Riot and said that this decision was something that is absolutely opposite to what Epic Games does.
Fortnite is still dropping game-changing updates before tournaments in 2020, and those are damaging the competitive integrity of the game.
Has Epic Games destroyed Fortnite's esports scene?
Fortnite's competitive scene is stumbling down a high and steep cliff with every update, and we can evidently see this on a very recent survey result.
According to Fortnite Competitive, the Season 3 of the game actually made half of its competitive player base declare the game as either "Bad" or "Very Bad," with less than 20% of responses calling the game "Good" or "Very Good."
The game design for Fortnite in Season 3 has made it very problematic for professional players to play it at a very competitive level.
The innate randomness in the game makes it quite difficult to take it seriously at a competitive level, and it has just become plain annoying for so many players. Moreover, there are multiple blunders in the game which have remained unaddressed and are just ruining the competitive environment.
So, it's pretty safe to say right now that streamers and professional players do not like Fortnite all that much, in 2020.
During Season 2, in 2019, things were a bit different.
Fortnite Competitive suggests that during Season 2, almost the same number of players found the game to be good and bad.
Though it might not seem like an absolutely groundbreaking achievement for the Fortnite competitive scene, the game still felt functional for many of the professional players.
theScore esports does a deep dive into why the competitive scene of Fortnite feels so irritating after Season 3.
They talk about a lot of problems that Fortnite is facing at the moment, from 'stream sniping' to 'cheating' to the pros not being able to team up with each other to practice. theScore esports covers a lot of what makes the game fun for casual players, but not so for those who want to compete in it professionally.
However, the biggest sin in their eyes is the dropping of major updates before each tournament. And by giving the example of Tfue and Ninja, they say that pros would rather stay home and stream than go to a Fortnite tournament.
Moreover, they echo much of the feelings that the Fortnite fans have when they speak about the game having a lot of potential. If Epic Games introduced a league like what PUBG did and invited top players and streamers to compete on LAN once every week, then Fortnite will definitely be much larger than what it is.
But that's not going to happen anytime soon, because as Daniel Rosen puts it in the video, "so over the last few months it's become clear that Epic has no idea what they're doing with Fortnite Esports, or at the very least that they don't care."
The Fortnite cheating problem
Much-like in shooters like CS: GO and Overwatch, cheating is slowly becoming a pandemic in Fortnite as well.
However, not many Fortnite fans thought that the hacking problem in Fortnite wasn't as serious as some pro players chalked it out to be, but that was until a hacker made his way to the Solo FNCS Finals.
According to Kona, the anti-cheat system in Fortnite is 'terrible', and no matter how much Epic Games tries to fix the issue, the system is still very easy to bypass.
And Kona literally shows that in the recent FNCS Solo Qualifiers, by reaching the finals, using only the 'basic hacks in the book', an aimbot. However, his transgressions didn't stop there, the hacker actually streamed the entire event on his Twitch channel, and bypassing the system looked incredibly easy.
The very fact he was not caught by the Fortnite anti-cheat throughout the entirety of the tournament, is a cause for much alarm for the game's competitive scene.
In retrospect, if we look at Valorant's anti-cheat software, Vanguard, we will see a stark difference between how Riot and Epic Games approach the competitive aspect of the game.
Vanguard is an incredibly intrusive kernel-level software, which is often regarded as one of the most sophisticated anti-cheats in the market. And no matter how many hardware issues it may have caused during the entirety of Valorant's lifespan, there is one thing that the players and pros agree on, and that is, 'Vanguard is incredibly effective.'
Not only does it put out automatic bans on its own, but the Riot anti-cheat squad goes through hundreds of suspicious profiles every day to weed out hackers and put out manual bans.
Moreover, Vanguard dishes out HWID ban. So if you're caught cheating, not only will you be hit with a permanent account ban, but a hardware ban as well. Hence, to play the game again, you will need to change the majority of your system hardware, which is quite a steep price to pay.
And this is precisely what makes Vanguard so very successful today. Its non-compromising nature is what helps Valorant maintain its competitive integrity.
Fortnite is losing its Pros
Ever since the end of Season 2 and the start of Season 3, several Fortnite professional players have been leaving the game one at a time. And Valorant seems to be the shooter that is harvesting these talents.
From Jake "Poach" Brumleve to Austin "Morgausse" Etue, Valorant has been able to provide a home and the promise of a new esports career to a lot of former Fortnite pros.
However, professionals are not the only ones who quit the game for something else.
In the video 'BIG Names Leaving Fortnite After Hours of New Season', Jake Lucky of the Esports Talk brings one very simple fact under the radar, and that is the Fortnite streamers and pro players leaving the game hours after the Season 3 launch.
Fortnite remains a lucrative business for any streamer, and Jake shows a tweet from the Fortnite streamer Zayt, who says that "streamers are streaming Fortnite for one day, farm the viewers, then go back to their normal lives."
Jake then references a roast video by DR. DisRespect, who trolls the Fortnite Season 3 reveal reaction videos by streamers, and says that the reactions looked 'fake.' And Doc wasn't really off the mark when he said this, hours after Season 3 came live, several streamers left the game and some even went on to play Valorant.
Ninja is one of the many former Fortnite streamers who have been investing a lot of time in Valorant. He had actively participated in a lot of the Ignition Series Tournaments, and it would seem that he is having much more fun in Valorant than what he did in Fortnite in months.
Is Fortnite dying?
With the amount of criticism that Fortnite has been receiving from professional players, and with so many streamers and influencers shying away from creating content on it, you might just be pondering over the fact that Fortnite might just be closing near its end.
And yes, the competitive scene of Fortnite is on its last pins. However, for the average player, the game is as fun as ever, and it sees an incredible amount of active players every day along with insane viewership records on Twitch.
But that being said, Fortnite did lose a good chunk of its player base in the last few months, and according to the popular streamer SypherPK, the reason is that "The action is not happening."
In one of his videos:
SypherPK spoke in-depth about the very many things that he wants Epic Games to improve about Fortnite, which, if not done, will not just end at a professional player exodus, but with average players leaving the game for good.
According to SypherPK, player density is one of the biggest problems that the game is facing at the moment, along with airplane drops and spawns.
He compares Fortnite to some similar games like Call of Duty: Warzone and the most recent Hyper Scape, and says that the speed at which the aircraft and the players move in Warzone, allows for a 'better action distribution.' And as in Fortnite, players need to land for them to start playing the game, while in Warzone, you can whip out a pistol whenever you want.
In a video posted on the 9th of May 2020, Ninja and SypherPK talk about the reality of Fortnite, and how its esports scene is on a very steep decline. However, casual players are having a blast, and according to Ninja, the total number of active players proves that much.
Hence, Valorant is spelling the doom for Fortnite, but not for the game as a whole, just for its professional scene.
