Even My Nine-Year-Old Can Tell Fortnite’s Gone Too Far
Criticism over customizations (or lack thereof) for the game's new "Sidekicks" feature was egregious enough that even my kid picked up on it.
“Dad, this doesn’t seem fair,” said my oldest daughter a few nights ago. She’s right, too.
People (and my daughter) are mad about a new feature in Fortnite called Sidekicks, aka pets that follow you around while you’re trying to collect loot and survive. Cute! People are mad because it feels like the game’s developer, Epic Games, has gone a step too far, because they only allow you to customize the look of a sidekick a single time. If you want to alter how a Sidekick looks in the future, you have to buy it again. Huh?
That is, uh, far less cute.
You get a Sidekick with the Simpsons “battle pass,” which costs 1,000 V-Bucks ($8). Future Sidekicks, per IGN, will cost somewhere between 1,200 and 1,400 V-Bucks ($10-14). That’s not cheap. And locking up customization in a game about…customization?
(A battle pass, if you’re not aware, is a system where you pay money to slowly unlock additional items, usually customization items, while you continue to play the game.)
After huffing a bit because she couldn’t play as Lisa (she’s getting unlocked later, apparently), my kid asked about her pet. For one, there aren’t many options to make the pet feel like your own. Do you want them bigger or smaller? Do you want them with spots or without spots? Like, the game is simply not offering enough options where you truly feel like you’ve created a unique companion to the point that it makes any sense to get to the end of the customization options and declare permanence.
After we poked through the handful of options, the message warning us that our choices were going to be locked forever came up. “I’m able to keep changing my actual character, right?” Correct, I told her. “Why can’t I change my pet friend?” I don’t know why, I told her. “Dad, this doesn’t seem fair.” What do you want me to say?!
I’m sorry. If a nine-year-old feels like you’ve gone too far, maybe you’ve gone too far?
On Epic’s own website, there’s a very funny question on their page about Sidekicks:
I cannot complete my Sidekick customization as the Next Step button is greyed out.
If your NEXT STEP button is greyed out, it means that you already own a Sidekick with the same Appearance. You can change the Appearance of your Sidekick manually, or you can use the randomize option to find another combination. Once this has been done, the NEXT STEP button will not be greyed out anymore.
Fortnite, you might be telling on yourself when one of the things you’re worried about is that players purchasing two Sidekicks and accidentally making them look the same.
As a family rule, with rare exceptions, we do not spend money in Roblox.
I didn’t feel that way about Fortnite. The reason my nine-year-old wanted to try Fortnite was because of its KPop Demon Hunters collaboration, which meant forking over cash for V-Bucks and moving on with my life. Fine! Fast forward a few weeks, though, and we’re now also buying V-Bucks for a Simpsons battle pass. I thought the Fortnite thing would end after KPop Demon Hunters, but now she’s doing Battle Royale.
Which, again—fine.
I think it’s cool that my daughter seems to be getting into traditional video games.
And the reason you don’t hear much complaining about Fortnite’s monetization is because, in general, it’s excellent. The skins are awesome, the collectibles are great. They do a wonderful job mashing up Fortnite’s aesthetic with an ever-increasing array of other styles. With Fortnite, it’s really a question of FOMO, more than anything else.
This, though? C’mon.
I’m tempted to call this whole thing a psychological experiment, because it feels on its face ridiculous. (I hope Epic Games will roll this back in the near future.) Then again, I also think the changes Fortnite is pushing out to better compete with Roblox are a problem. Maybe, instead, we’re watching the money squeeze finally get put on Fortnite.
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Also:
My oldest’s Fortnite time has become when I’m putting her sister to sleep. She tries to squeeze in as many Battle Royale matches as she can before I’m done.
Truth be told, I think she’s mostly playing against bots. She doesn’t care, though.
I get why parents might be concerned about their kids playing a game with guns, but honestly, my daughter spends most of her time wanting to collect loot.
It's funny seeing the mention of parents having concerns about kids playing games with guns. I remember my parents making a really big deal about violent video games when I was a kid more than twenty years ago, back in the days of beat 'em ups and fighting games on the NES. Little did they know I was playing said games at a neighbor kid's house. I think we underestimate kids' ability to differentiate fantasy from reality if they have a good moral framework to build off of at home