Fortnite Added Content Guidelines to Cosmetics, And It's Both Cool and Hilarious
Everybody knows Michael Meyers appeals E for Everyone. But it's good that Epic Games is trying at all.
UPDATE: Epic Games seems to be backtracking on this a bit, announcing:
“Welp, our plan for cosmetics with the ratings update didn’t hit the mark,” said the company on Twitter. “We're working on a few new options that we hope to have in place for say... some sort of big in-game event. Stay tuned, we’ll keep you posted <3”
Curious. When asked, the company declined to elaborate further.
Epic Games made a fascinating Fortnite announcement yesterday. As part of Fortnite’s evolution into a Roblox-like platform of experiences beyond strictly Fortnite, the company previously revealed a partnership with the International Age Rating Coalition to provide “age and content ratings” for content made by Epic and players. What’s new this week is these ratings started rolling out, and it applies to more than just player-made games (“islands”), it also applies to the game’s popular cosmetics.
You don’t have to be a regular Fortnite player to know a huge part of the game’s ongoing success is its partnerships with everything from horror to anime to the NFL, allowing players to build forts and fire guns as Goku or Michael Meyers.
It’s completely weird and totally awesome.
But previously, players could dress up as those characters and play anywhere! Now, Epic Games says a “small portion” of cosmetics “are not compatible with E or E10+ (or regionally equivalent) game ratings.” This means those cosmetics cannot be equipped while joining certain islands, because each individual island has also been rated.
For example:
This leads to some humorous and confusing moments. Michael Meyers, supernatural murderer from the Halloween series, is playable everywhere. Chris Redfield from Resident Evil, however, is not. But ironically, Jill Valentine from Resident Evil…is?
Michael Myers does not wield a knife in Fortnite. He can pick up a gun, because while Fortnite is ultimately a cartoonish game about shooting people with guns, he does not have a knife as part of the cosmetic. Chris Redfield, however, has a holster, I think?
It all looks pretty similar when you look at it, though…? It’s a tough judgement call.
“The ultimate goal here is to make sure that the appearance of the cosmetic is consistent with the rating of the island,” said a company spokesperson. “For example, cosmetics with a strong horror theme or realistic weapons would not be appropriate for an island rated E.”
Epic Games declined to provide an list of what cosmetics fall into what ratings categories, though presumably the Fortnite player base will eventually do that.
“It’s about the physical appearance more than their association with the genre,” said the spokesperson, asked why a character from the horror genre wasn’t rated higher.
Pushback from the community prompted Epic Games to clarify “7% of Fortnite Outfits can only be equipped in islands rated Teen.” The company also said that over the next year, it planned to “enable most of these Outfits to be compatible with all ratings by having them auto-adjust appearance based on the island you want to play.”
In theory, Chris Redfield could lose the holster and everything’s cool? The company could not commit to that specific idea, likely because the process is too early.
Player-made content is a huge part of kids entertainment, and what to make of the content inside is completely scattershot in most places. You can apply the same description to YouTube and Twitch. Epic Games’ implementation here is not without some flaws, but game companies erring on the side of trying to provide players and families more information about what they’re playing is absolutely the right call.
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Also:
My kid doesn’t play Fortnite, but at this point, I’d be happier if they were playing Fortnite instead of Roblox, specifically because of this level of content control.
I can’t get over Michael Meyers being E for Everyone. It’s way too funny.
It’ll be interesting if the hold up on some these cosmetics is because the licensors won’t let them. Do they have to negotiate with each company again?
Imagine a MCU Black Widow skin with holsters and imagine Epic negotiating with Disney about (of all things) optional holsters depending on activity. I wonder how flexible brands will be with this stuff if the system steers towards changing models based on activity age rating.
Also brings up issues around what American & other western cultures prioritizes for age ratings.
There’s a very prominent T for Teens sticker on the ready up screen now too it’s funny