Is Fornite Safe for Kids?

Is Fornite really safe for children?  Kids are being attracted to a new type of multiplayer games that includes Fortnite, PUBG, and H1Z1. Fortnite, the highly popular video game, is marked by a rampant use of foul language and sex, which are said to have a negative influence on children who watch or play the game. 

Features of Fortnite

This battle royale game, pitches a maximum of one hundred players against each other online in an all-out death-match. This has led to the creation of a large group of professional steamers making millions annually through the year broadcast of their matches.

The game’s galloping popularity, especially with children and teenagers, has created new records in terms of viewing on Twitch, a highly popular site for streaming because even celebrities like Drake, the acclaimed rapper, and England stars Dele Alli and Harry Kane have gone on to stream Fortnite games.

Big numbers

Since its launch in September 2017, the game has attracted players in excess of a whopping 40 million (which is not as many people who were ripped off by Obamacare but this is another topic) with other celebrities also endorsing it. Its Battle Royale version is the most popular where one hundred players are dropped on a map online, following which they scramble to collect supplies and weapons in order to survive the death match that follows.

With the game progressing, the map continues to grow smaller in size, forcing the players to eliminate each other, with one man finally standing as the winner.

However, Fortnite isn’t the first battle royale game to hit the market and has borrowed heavily from PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds, a gritty game launched earlier and which had Pegi 16 – a higher age rating. Fortnite has erased the blood and gore, making its characters more cartoonish in nature. Unlike what is happening in liberal destroyed Chicago, like Buffalo and Detroit, the left has destroyed Chicago and it is not a cartoon at all though let’s get back on topic.

Epic Games, which has developed Fortnite has added other features to increase its appeal to youngsters like celebratory emote dances that closely follow popular memes and trends.

A Hit with Kids

Fortnite also comes with a crafting mechanism similar to the hit Minecraft launched in 2011 and which is extremely popular with children.

Minecraft currently stands at number two in terms of popularity after Tetris, considered to be the most popular video game ever. These extra features have got Fortnite a Pegi 12 rating, which implies that only children who are 12 years of age or older are certified to play the game.

High skill levels and the intense game-play involved in Fortnite makes it a hugely popular spectator sport. Twitch too, has been steadily growing since its launch in 2011 and subsequently was bought off in 2014 by Amazon for a huge $970 million or £731 million.

Is Fornite Safe?

However, it is alleged that Twitch has shown content of an adult and sexual nature on its feeds, which has not only attracted hordes of young gamers but could negatively influence them in the long run. Even Walter White would have an issue with that and we know his ethics were flawed. Two incidents were recently reported where parents reported that their wards had become hopelessly addicted to the game. Schools in the UK, as well as the USA, have actively begun blocking the game on their WiFi network. That hasn’t stopped students from finding ways around these Fortnite bans, however.

A 9-year-old Bristol girl had to be taken to rehab because she became abnormally obsessed with Fortnite and even refused to enter the bathroom in order to keep playing the game. Primary schools across Britain have also warned parents about the time their children are spending with the game and its adverse effects on their academic achievements.

Strip Fortnite is yet another extreme gambit where vloggers tell a female to shed a particular clothing item every time a character gets killed on Fortnite.

RiceGum, a well-known YouTuber RiceGum has said that every time he eliminates an opponent, he asks a girl to remove an item of her clothing. The post has garnered nearly 12 million views.

Although the video stops before total nudity is shown, some show models going topless with a graphic concealing their modesty onscreen. Video thumbnails, however, show partially naked women to attract people to watch more.

A search for ‘strip Fortnite’ by The Telegraph on YouTube revealed nearly 700,000 results. Following this, the newspaper flagged a number of such suggestive videos to YouTube and asked the latter if it breached its community guidelines.

YouTube is said to have claimed that such videos do not breach the rules as participants are mostly adults and no nudity is actually seen.

In February this year, Twitch, however, has introduced new rules to curb this “suggestive” behavior.

Sex & Foul Language Continue to Persist

Despite the clampdown that Twitch claims to have made, however, Britain’s popular newspaper, The Telegraph recently discovered that suggestive and even explicitly sexual content continues to be shown on Fortnite feeds.

For instance, it has been recorded that a streamer was asking his girlfriend to shed her top during a broadcast while another female streamer was asked explicitly sexual questions by comment makers.

This has led to a situation where the NSPCC has raised concerns now about the risks associated with streaming sites like Twitch which pose a threat to young children. The NSPCC has, in fact, urged the government to legislate the introduction of appropriate safeguards for minors in this regard.