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‘Fortnite’ Is Jira for Children
Welcome to the ‘enterprisification’ of games
On Wednesdays, I play Fortnite. It’s me (Dr_Trout), RobotHowells, TwoShots, and SigmoidFiend. There’s a story behind each gamertag. “It’s Robot, like Robert. But Robot because it’s a video game,” Rob says, “which I guess is like a robot.” SigmoidFiend receives a lot of praise for her tag. “Actually,” she says, sheepishly, “Xbox Live just kind of suggested it to me.” Still, we declare it an excellent choice. TwoShots tells us his comes from that time he accidentally played the sound of a gun twice when doing backstage effects for a play. Mine is a name I used as a child that I’ve hung onto for sentimental reasons. We all refer to our gamertags with the self-conscious awkwardness of adults in their thirties.
For those not familiar, Fortnite is an online video game where you shoot people until there’s no one left to shoot. We call these sorts of games “battle royales” after the 2000 Japanese film in which a group of schoolchildren are forced to fight to the death. Despite these gruesome origins, Fortnite is light and cartoony, populated with characters like a humanoid banana, a giant gingerbread man, and a weight-lifting cat called Meowscles.
At the start of each game, 100 players parachute down to an island and compete to be the final survivor. Meanwhile, a circle…
