The Sunday Telegraph Sunday 29 April 2018 *** 29 Features

HELP, MY SON IS ADDICTED TO FORTNITE!

Ever since my always dreaded. 13-year-old son I should be Alex began grateful he’s not playing Fortnite, roaming the he has been streets, that his stuck in his zombiefication room for what is happening feels like the where I can keep best part of one. watch. But this The other addiction fills night, I caught me with horror. him smuggling I have sought in a takeaway; advice; Rachel the prospect of Vecht, from breaking away Educating from the game, Matters, tells me which he plays one of the most online with common strangers, to questions is how have dinner parents can with his family, police screen- was unthinkable. time. “Banning If he had his screens own way, he altogether is not would play for the answer. Kids 10 hours a day, crave what they stopping just for can’t have.” loo breaks. Besides, there Welcome to my will always be new world. some new game I kick myself for them to be for letting him obsessed with. talk me into So, I am

ALAMY STOCK PHOTO STOCK ALAMY buying him a implementing PS4; Fortnite is some new rules. free, hence its Screentime will popularity: “But be limited, and it’s good,” he only after his says, “it teaches homework is you strategy.” All done. If this How Fortnite took over the world I want him to be doesn’t work, strategic at is his after a warning I homework. will confiscate boys in my school who didn’t turn up Record-breaking: at any one time, up to to watch as it is to play), a distinct lack Having the screen. If It’s the survival game that boasts 40 million for the end-of-years on Friday because three million can be playing the game of bloody violence – and a knowing started to that doesn’t they were playing it.” sense of humour that only adds to the mature into an work, I will get players and has British teenagers hooked. Fortnite is what is called a “co-op developers license game engines camaraderie. ambitious child, rid of the PS4. sandbox survival game”, where you when designing new projects, so Players can chat to their friends Alex has turned Wish me luck. have a character plonked down in a Sweeney built the engine, the team while playing via headsets, and overnight into Nadine Charlie Montgomery charts a success story computer-generated world (the designed a game and Rein maxed out everyone else via the “Emote” function the teenager I Wojakovski sandbox) of immense but finite his credit card until – in May 1998 – – which offers a limited, positive range n this world, my friend, there because it was becoming so dimensions, meet other players (the the company shipped Unreal, both a of smiles and nods. are two kinds of people – detrimental to their relationship. co-op) and either kill them or work first-person shooter game and a You can choose to protect others those who play Fortnite and Nearly 4,000 other women signed it. with them to survive. software engine. from being bullied. When you’ve done those who don’t understand Jake Roper, YouTube star and host So, who are the Machiavellian and Critical acclaim, healthy sales and something amazing, you can even it. Or even know it exists. of online channel Vsauce3, said the secret brains behind the game licence fees from other game show off by doing a little dance. The If you’re in the latter group, closest thing he’s seen to the Fortnite currently out-earning Candy Crush developers poured cash into the Floss – based on a curious zigzagging here’s a thumbnail: Fortnite is a game craze is the explosion of Saga, Clash of Clans, and Pokémon Go company. Epic grew and, in 2012, of the hips and hands – has fast Ithat is either a work of genius, the cryptocurrency. “I think [what the on a weekly basis – with a total haul so Chinese games giant Tencent snapped become the new Harlem Shake in most dangerous thing to happen to game is experiencing] is a lot like what far of some $126 million (£91.5 million)? up 40 per cent, valuing the company at schools. Despite its addictive nature, is teenage minds, a complex legal happened to crypto last year,” he said Did it take a PhD in behavioural $825 million (£598 million). there really anything for parents to rip-off, or an unnecessarily brutal in one interview. “Some people had it, sciences to make Fortnite successful? When Fortnite was released last July worry about? example of corporate policing. Or, people vaguely knew it existed, but No. It just took everyone else’s success, as a paid-for game, reviews were “Not at all,” sniffs Andrew Reid, probably, all of the above. suddenly it was like, ‘I gotta have this’. with Fortnite sampling the best bits positive. But it was the launch, in doctoral researcher of serious games It also happens to have become a Everyone was into it.” from all the gaming hits of the past five September, of a free-to-play mode, at Glasgow Caledonian University. global phenomenon – currently the “All the boys at my school love it and years – from Minecraft, to its hugely Fortnite: Battle Royale, that had hordes “People have been trying to prove biggest game in the world, with three all the girls hate it,” my 14-year-old successful rival, PlayerUnknown Battle clamouring to be the last one standing. video games cause violent or addictive million people playing at any one daughter Beth explains. “We had our Ground (PUBG) – all mashed into one. It now has more than 40 million behaviour almost since they were time. It holds the record for the most end of year exams in the hottest week Which is where all the trouble begins. players worldwide. invented, and there has never been a “how to complete a level”-style in April,” she reminds me. “After Epic Games, the US software The game’s success, however, has single conclusive piece of research to cheats uploaded in a single month to school the girls were all outside in the development firm behindFortnite and been ascribed to its easy gameplay, prove they do. There are lots of people Worried: Nadine has been forced to YouTube, and recently set a record sun, and the boys were all at home its spin-offs, was originally set up in an animation-like graphics and goofy researching Fortnite right now, and no introduce rules for son Alex for biggest single live gaming stream, playing Fortnite. I swear, there were engineering student’s parent’s costumes (which make it almost as fun one’s proved anything.” with more than 1.1 million viewers. basement – in this case, University of Quite a feat for something which, to Maryland undergraduate Tim the casual observer, came out of Sweeney. In 1991, Sweeney released a nowhere. game called ZZT, in which players shot For parents, however, these monsters and found treasure. numbers will come as no surprise. Sweeney’s dad Paul sold copies of While they may not quite understand ZZT by mail order and Sweeney the game – a multiplayer shoot- tinkered, studied and set up Epic em-up with an age rating of 12+ – or Games with Mark Rein, a brash its appeal, they do know it is salesman with a lot of ambition. He extremely addictive. Their children suggested the team set about building simply can’t stop playing. Even a game engine – effectively, a software grown men are addicted; one gamer’s “chassis” controlling the core girlfriend launched a petition on On the go: players can now download a demands of a game, from its physics change.org to get the game banned version of Fortnite on their smartphones to its animation. Rein knew that many