Tag: Fads and trends

Big Oil’s Using Fortnite, TikTok, And Twitch In Effort To Convince Kids Fossil Fuels Are Cool

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Kids today only care about online free-to-play shooter Fortnite. They don’t even talk about how great gasoline is! Luckily for us, one large oil company wants to change that using Fortnite, TikTok stars, and Twitch streamers. Welcome to Hell.

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Climate change is bad. I think we can all agree on that. But for kids, who have long lives and futures ahead of them, the prospect of the planet turning into a nightmare sphere of extreme weather and chaos is particularly scary. But don’t worry about all that, kids. Instead, Shell—a massive oil company and one of the many entities directly responsible for destroying our planet—wants you all to know just how rad its fossil fuel products are, and even made a whole Fortnite world for you to enjoy! But to truly enjoy it, you’ll need to use Shell’s V-Power® NiTRO+ Premium Gasoline, of course.

As reported by Media Matters earlier this week, Shell has partnered with map creators to develop “Shell Ultimate Road Trips”, a Fortnite world featuring six different areas to explore in the car of your choice. In the middle of these worlds, players will find a lonely, sad-looking Shell gas station acting as the map’s hub.

The campaign—part of Shell’s pivot back to focusing on gasoline over cleaner energy sources— is designed to promote the company’s “new and improved” premium gasoline. The idea is that in the map, players will need to occasionally fill up at the central Shell gas station and use its new V-Power NiTRO+ fuel to successfully navigate obstacles and courses.

Content creators are being enlisted to create big oil propaganda

To help promote this terrible collaboration, Shell has enlisted various TikTok creators and Twitch streamers in an effort to connect with their large audiences made up of mostly younger individuals.

Media Matters reportedly identified at least a half dozen streamers—including folks like Punisher, NateHill, Chica, and brookeab—with a combined Twitch following of over 5.5 million subscribers—who helped promote Shell’s Fortnite map and fossil fuel products during sponsored streams that racked up over a million views. Some of these creators also promoted the sponsored streams on Instagram, Twitter, and TikTok to their millions of followers. Media Matters also identified three content creators who advertised the ShellxFortnite map in several videos posted on the gas company’s official YouTube, TikTok, and Instagram accounts.

The creators directly promoting Shell’s gasoline propaganda have a combined audience of 8.5 million TikTok followers, 1.5 million Instagram followers, and over 11 million YouTube subscribers.

In August, Shell even paid out for a sponsored post on IGN as well as a three-part series featuring IGN staff playing Fortnite and exploring the Shell-sponsored map. The videos are covered in Shell logos and featured on a fancy IGN-hosted website dedicated to the oil company’s Fortnite map.

Kids aren’t buying this crap

So how’s all this money and effort paying off? As far as I can tell, not great. For example, looking at that IGN article, it’s got only two comments and both are negative. On YouTube, the IGN videos have mostly received negative comments from viewers, with many calling out the outlet for sponsoring an oil company. Elsewhere, the official trailers put out by Shell for their Fortnite creation are similarly receiving negative comments.

“Drop in this season and complete the objective: ‘Do irreparable damage to the environment with Shell!” is the top-rated comment on this trailer for the map.

This is all part of an ongoing campaign by big oil companies, like Shell, to connect with younger people via online influencers and content creators. In 2021, Earther reported that Shell and Phillips 66 had started campaigns with Instagram influencers. These sponsored deals and ads aren’t just about promoting oil companies and their products. These large corporations know that as climate change gets worse, it’s getting harder to convince young people to keep buying gas-powered cars and supporting the fossil fuel industry.

As Media Matters pointed out, in a 2021 survey of young people between the ages of 16-25, about 75% said the future is frightening because of climate change. It’s hard to sell gasoline and diesel to teens who know it’s destroying the planet and their futures. And it doesn’t look like some Instagram models and Fortnite videos on IGN promoting Shell are going to be enough to change their minds.

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Zack Zwiezen

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October 6, 2023
Fortnite Brings Back ‘Share The Wealth’ Emote On Same Day As Mass Layoffs

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The video game industry is still reeling from Epic Games’ September 28 announcement that it will lay off nearly 900 employees. If developers at the Fortnite money-printing factory aren’t safe, nobody is. In perhaps the worst-timed microtransaction ever, Fortnite’s “Share The Wealth” emote went back up for sale on the battle royale’s in-game shop later that day.

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It didn’t take Fortnite news accounts like Guille_GAG long to discover the emote had returned to cap off the a day full of grim news. “Epic has brought back the Share the Wealth Emote just after firing 900 of their employees…,” they tweeted. “Epic Games is under fire for selling the ‘Share the Wealth’ Emote in today’s Item Shop rotation – just hours after 830 employees were laid off,” the FortniteBR Instagram account posted.

It appears the emote, which was added to the game earlier this year in Chapter 4: Season 3, was only on sale for a brief period before being removed. According to FortniteBR and others, the emote was removed when Epic took down the entire Daily Rotation tab from the store shortly after the emote went live.

A company spokesperson told Kotaku in an email that the “Share The Wealth” emote was pre-scheduled. “The emote was taken down when we realized the mistake roughly one hour after going live,” they wrote. Epic Games acknowledged the missing feature on Twitter and said it would return during the next item shop refresh.

“We’ve been spending way more money than we earn,” Epic CEO Tim Sweeney wrote in an email to staff announcing the layoffs. It was a peculiar invocation of of the royal “we,” considering the executive then proceeded to list acquisitions, expansions, and other business initiatives, like growing Fortnite as a metaverse-inspired ecosystem for creators, that most of the people laid off probably had no say in.

It’s unclear what sort of salary Sweeney and other executives at the company draw. Epic remains a privately owned company, so it doesn’t have to disclose any of that information. Sweeney has pushed back again the concept of a wealth tax in the past, claiming that it would penalize people like him by forcing them to sell equity in their companies anytime they become more valuable. While the larger company remains a black box, we do know that Fortnite made $9 billion in its first two years, and Epic continues to rake in “billions of dollars a year in revenue from player purchases.”

The news around Epic’s layoffs renewed questions about how companies handle cost-cutting, and who feels the pain first when economic gambles don’t pay off. People often recall the late Nintendo president Satoru Iwata’s symbolic pay cuts when his companies’ products would underperform, like the 3DS and Wii U. Some other gaming CEOs have undergone similar compensation cuts in recent years, including Ubisoft, Electronic Arts, and Activision. Relative to the millions earned in company stock, however, the salary haircuts often seem like a pittance in comparison.

“The reality of being laid off by Epic while being treated for skin cancer has hit me and woken me from a not sound sleep and I don’t think there are words for how furious I am at the company, the leadership, their greed…all of it.” one former Epic employee tweeted overnight. In the meantime, Epic is still burning money on things like Epic Games Store, its Steam competitor, showering players with free games. The latest freebie is the action RPG Soulstice, which is normally listed at $40.

“Saying goodbye to people who have helped build Epic is a terrible experience for all,” Sweeney wrote in his email to staff. “The consolation is that we’re adequately funded to support laid off employees: we’re offering a severance package that includes six months base pay and in the US/Canada/Brazil six months of Epic-paid healthcare.”

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Ethan Gach

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September 29, 2023
The Red Cross Challenged Gamers To Not Commit War Crimes
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Image: Epic Games
The International Committee of the Red Cross has partnered up with a bunch of Twitch streamers to encourage gamers to not commit war crimes in popular shooters like Call of Duty. The ICRC hopes that its event, “Play by the Rules,” will educate players on the statutes of actual war. The organization has even created its own Fortnite mode to help communicate what those rules are.

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Read More: War Crimes in Video Games Draw Red Cross Scrutiny

“Every day, people play games set in conflict zones right from their couch. But right now, armed conflicts are more prevalent than ever,” the ICRC website said. “And to the people suffering from their effects, this conflict is not a game. It destroys lives and leaves communities devastated. Therefore, we’re challenging you to play FPS by the real Rules of War, to show everyone that even wars have rules—rules which protect humanity on battlefields IRL.”

As part of the event, on the ICRC’s official Twitch channel streamers have played a number of games while adhering (or attempting to adhere) to the Laws of Conflict, including PUBG Battlegrounds, Fortnite, Call of Duty: Warzone, Rainbow 6 Siege, and Escape From Tarkov. In addition to the Play by the Rules event, the ICRC created its own Fortnite mode that’s designed to convey the rules of war in the context of competitive play.

For those curious, the official rules of war for the ICRC’s Play by the Rules event (which have been streamlined to account for video game mechanics) are:

No thirsting (don’t shoot downed/unresponsive enemies)

No targeting non-violent NPCs

No targeting civilian buildings

Use med kits on everyone

ICRC

This isn’t the first time the ICRC has urged players to critically think about the rules of war. Back in 2017, the ICRC hosted a similar event in an Arma III DLC called Law of War. In Law of War, gamers put down their weapons and took on the role of humanitarian workers as they respond to people in crisis, deactivate mines, and speak with an investigative journalist. According to a blog post from Arma III developer Bohemia Interactive, the DLC raised a total of $176,667, which it donated to the ICRC.
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Isaiah Colbert

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April 19, 2023
10 Must-See Battle Royale Moments, From Fortnite To Warzone

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Image: Respawn / Kotaku

No two battle royale matches are alike. Clever, spontaneous tactics springing from the generative collision of varying skill levels, map layout, and randomized items, weapons, and vehicles can lead to theatrical levels of epicness and hilarity—often both at the same time. So it’s only fitting during Kotaku’s week of Battle Royale that we celebrate some standout moments across the many games that have challenged our wits, accuracy, and luck, surprising us with moments no one saw coming.

It would be impossible to catalog every possible epic-tier moment, be it in Warzone, Fortnite, PUBG, or Apex Legends, so these are barely even the tip of the iceberg. But they are nonetheless some excellent examples of literal pro-gamer moves, crushing failures, and thrilling moments of victory. One of them is from one of Kotaku’s very own (but it ain’t me. I suck at these damn games).

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Claire Jackson

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March 31, 2023
After Three Months Of Struggles, Ashika Island Saved Warzone 2.0

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Since its release in November 2022, Call of Duty: Warzone 2.0 has undergone immense scrutiny from the community due to its rocky launch. Warzone 2.0 dropped with numerous missing features that undid a lot of the goodwill garnered during the first game’s lifecycle, and while it still has a long way to go, it’s headed in the right direction, thanks in part to the recently released Ashika Island map.

This small-scale Resurgence map doesn’t fix all of the game’s issues, but it certainly brought me—and many other lapsed fans—back to the battle royale, thanks to its more focused, faster-paced experience. There are many reasons the map works so well, but it mainly comes down to its design, along with the Resurgence mode featured on it, which makes the most of its smaller scale and tighter spaces by removing a lot of the downtime typically present on larger maps. This makes each match feel balanced and digestible, especially when compared to Al Mazrah, the main Warzone 2.0 battle royale map.

Al Mazrah is fine. It’s not horrible, but it has a litany of problems that are exacerbated by some of the flawed gameplay design choices—like lots of open spaces in between POIs that leave players wide open for attacks while rotating. Likewise, the map itself feels too big for the limited 150-player count, which leads to far too much downtime. When combined with the game’s slow movement, this practically guarantees you’ll go several minutes at a time without any enemy engagements.

Ashika Island, on the other hand, offers way more cover between POIs—whether in the form of small buildings, rocky terrain, or objects to hide behind. It encourages movement and pushes matches closer to the fast pacing the series is known for. There’s never a dull moment on Ashika Island since its player count is just right for the map size, which keeps engagements flowing at a consistent rate.

Ashika Island’s impeccable design

Image: Activision

Speaking of POIs, each main hub on Ashika Island is a blast, from the condensed Residential area, to the multistoried Tsuki Castle, and even the close-quarters Oganikku Farms. Activision and High Moon Studios did an incredible job of creating POIs that are all fun to explore and battle it out against enemies in, without feeling repetitive. Ashika Island has something for everyone, whether you’re someone who prefers to take it slowly, or an expert player who likes to finesse and use the environment to your advantage.

The underground area full of water is also a nice touch, giving players another way to rotate away from potential hot zones. Those who are less experienced can just hang out in the underground area, which is usually not well-trafficked. This gives newcomers a chance to get their bearings and survive, even against more experienced players.

Likewise, Ashika Island doesn’t have choke points or overly advantageous positions like other maps. One of the biggest issues with the original Warzone is that certain spots like Prison from Rebirth Island and Peak on Caldera were right in the middle of the map and gave players a distinct height advantage. So, other POIs felt less desirable to take over, especially since they were often on the outskirts of the map. That’s why Ashika Island works so well: there’s no obvious power position that works better than others. Sure, certain POIs are slightly more ideal depending on the zone movement and your play style, but overall, Ashika Island’s layout is well-balanced.

One of the best areas is the set of apartment buildings to the southeast of Oganikku Farms. There are two tall buildings here, each comprised of several floors, all of which can be reached from the opposite building across. This gives players multiple access points, rewarding those who like to outsmart their opponents. One of my favorite gameplay moments involved flying a helicopter toward a team, using it to distract the enemy players, and then jumping out before taking out multiple foes in one fluid motion. Outmaneuvering an opponent is Warzone at its best, and it’s all thanks to Ashika Island’s fantastic design.

Back in the action, soldier

Screenshot: Activision / Joseph Yaden

Beyond the map’s design itself, I cannot praise the Resurgence mode enough. By default, battle royales on traditional large maps can be tough to get into since it often takes upwards of 30 minutes to finish a match. You typically spend more time looting and preparing for battle than you do actually fighting against other players, which gets old after a while.

But Resurgence throws that out the window; instead taking place on a smaller map with a max of 52 players (as opposed to around 150 on Al Mazrah). More importantly, it allows players to continuously respawn as long as at least one teammate remains alive, offering plenty of chances to get back into the action.

What this means is that you’re not penalized as much for playing aggressively, resulting in hard-hitting and fun matches that are easy to pick up and play—even if you’re getting your ass kicked. It’s easy to get caught in the “one more match” loop when Resurgence games last between 12 and 15 minutes, and it’s less likely that you’ll give up in frustration when you know you can drop in, get in a firefight, and get back in faster than you can find a weapon in the traditional battle royale. While Warzone’s gameplay itself still needs a little work—like implementing a slower time to kill, and faster animations across the board—getting back into the action so quickly almost makes up for some of its fundamental gameplay flaws.

Ashika Island’s excellent design, along with the faster-paced, less punishing Resurgence gameplay, equates to an immensely fun experience that feels much more like Call of Duty than the traditional BR mode. It’s swift and intense, with plenty of variation that keeps me interested for lengthy game sessions broken up into short bursts. It gets to the point faster and is ideal for players who don’t have hours upon hours to devote, offering the same thrills as a typical battle royale but in a fraction of the time. Sure, Warzone 2.0 has plenty of room for improvement, but Ashika Island makes me confident the game will eventually reach the highs of its predecessor.

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Joseph Yaden

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March 27, 2023
Fortnite’s Plague Doc Skin Is Back After Three Years, Fans Blame COVID

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Image: Epic Games / Kotaku

Yesterday, after 1,410 days (or 3 years and 10 months) the Grim Medicine cosmetic set—complete with the popular Plague Doctor skin—returned to Fortnite’s in-game store, letting players buy it for the first time since the start of the covid-19 pandemic. And many believe it was the pandemic itself that kept the plague-themed items and skins out of the game for such a long period of time.

I doubt I need to explain Fortnite to you, but just so everyone’s on the same page: Epic’s Fortnite is a free-to-play battle royale PVP shooter available on nearly every modern platform out there. It supports crossplay across all of them and for the last few years has been one of the most popular games in the world as it continues to expand and include more characters from other franchises, like Star Wars, Dragonball Z, and Street Fighter.

But Fortnite also has plenty of its own original skins and cosmetic items too, like Peely and the previously mentioned Plague Doctor. But until yesterday, these plague-related items hadn’t appeared in the game since March 1, 2019, making them extremely rare, as the only people who could use them were folks who bought them back when they were last available. Meanwhile, most other skins appear again and again in the store every few weeks or months.

Fans had theorized that the Grim Medicine cosmetic set had been blacklisted and retired by Epic due to the covid-19 pandemic. This makes sense, as including those skins during the height of the deadly pandemic that has killed over 6 million people worldwide as of January 2023 would have been a bad look.

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The working theory is that the skin popped up in the store on March 1, 2019. Then before it could appear again in the store, covid-19 was detected in Wuhan, China in December 2019 and eventually spread around the world, officially becoming a pandemic according to the World Health Organization on March 11, 2020. It’s not unreasonable that Epic saw this happening and decided to pull the plague-themed items from the store’s rotation in order to avoid any controversy.

The thing is, Epic has never officially confirmed this theory at any point. Kotaku has reached out about the skin and the long gap in time between it showing up, but didn’t hear back from the company. Still, even if Epic hasn’t officially confirmed the reason for the Grim Medicine items going missing for nearly four years, the covid-19 theory doesn’t seem unreasonable to me. And regardless of why, many players were excited to see it return, even if only to make a joke about its long absence. Or to point out that covid-19 is still a thing in 2023, which it is, and it’s still deadly and dangerous, too.

“One of my friends IMMEDIATELY dropped money into the game upon getting this notification. He’s been waiting since it was last in the shop,” tweeted one person. “LETS GOOOO! I finally got PLAGUE!!! I wanted him for 2 years,” tweeted another player upon seeing the news of the Plague Doctor’s return to Fortnite. Of course, there were other players who found it funny everybody was excited over the skin, and others who owned it already and were now sad to see their once rare skin become common once more.

Personally, I’m not excited about the Grim Medicine skins as I don’t really like how they look. And besides, I only like to buy the most cursed and bizarre skins in Fortnite, like Mr. Meeseeks from Rick and Morty.

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Zack Zwiezen

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January 11, 2023
‘Fortnite’ Maker Fined $520 Million For Invading Kids’ Privacy And Tricking Players

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Fortnite creator Epic Games will pay a record $520 million to settle allegations that it illegally collected children’s personal information and used “dark patterns” to encourage accidental in-game purchases. What do you think?

“I hope they have a creepy way of making that money back.”

Cliff Zarley • Unemployed

“I blame parents for letting their kids have personal information.”

Mandy Lee • Chief Enunciator

“We let these companies babysit our kids for free, and they betray us like this?”

Skyler McManus • Excuse Investigator

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December 21, 2022
World Cup Player Gets Gaming Setup Shipped To Qatar So He Can Play Fortnite

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Photo: Mike Hewitt (Getty Images)

England goalkeeper Jordan Pickford has made a few handy saves so far at this World Cup, but between waiting around for large parts of a game and then having days between matches, there’s a lot of spare time to fill. Which he has duly done by getting an enormous gaming setup shipped over from home.

Pickford, who plays his club football for Everton, revealed the power move as part of this promotional interview below, which runs for over 20 minutes but which I’ve set to autoplay at the relevant moment:

Pickford Chats GK Union, Gaming Setups and Golf Dream Teams 🎮⛳️ | Ep.20 | Lions’ Den With M&S Food

Seems the guy really likes playing Fortnite, and had previously taken gaming laptops with him while on national duty so he could play on his off days. But switching between those cramped confines and his regular setup had proved too much for the Euro 2021 Golden Glove winner, so for Qatar he just figured, fuck it, and got something more heavy duty shipped over.

Screenshot: YouTube

The monogrammed container it arrived in is, indeed, a “proper bit of kit”. Inside it’s still a laptop, but with a custom-built, full-size TV/monitor/screen included so that the visual experience on the road matched what he was used to at home.

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As for Fortnite, it’s not just Pickford playing; as he says above it’s something he plays with the lads, and four years ago at the last World Cup the England squad were famously, absolutely hooked on it:

Aside from their inspired celebrations, England players have been very forthcoming about their own Fortnite escapades in the camp. It’s no surprise that team youngsters Marcus Rashford and Alli play religiously, or that young-at-heart Raheem Sterling and Lingard log on to Epic Games’ best-seller, but the true revelation has been star striker Kane.

Kane, or should we say “hkane23”, has racked up an astonishing 110 matches while in Russia, closely followed by Tottenham (and evidently Fortnite) teammate Alli, also known as “Delstroyer14”, who has played 82 times, according to reports. The pair have previously livestreamed their matches, including one against defender and teammate Harry Maguire.

This being 2022, and with the World Cup running (for some countries at least) for almost a month, he’s far from the only person there playing Fortnite in his downtime. But he is, surely, the only one “just tryin to get the best frames, trying to get the upper hand” with a monogrammed, armoured computer case.

It’s also lovely to see that, since switching to a PC laptop, he’s having more luck with his power supply.

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Luke Plunkett

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December 6, 2022