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    Fortnite

    Game » consists of 8 releases. Released Jul 25, 2017

    Originally a co-operative looter shooter from the studios behind Unreal Tournament and Gears of War, Fortnite became one of the most successful PvP "battle royale" games and later became its own platform for several types of games.

    Prince Harry wants to ban Fortnite in UK

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    berfunkle

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    #1  Edited By berfunkle
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    Acura_Max

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    While I don't agree that there should be a ban, he's right that fortnite was made to addict.

    Also the sections after the piece after Harry is just textbook "video games are bad" writing churned out every time something like this pops up. I wonder if they just use the same information multiple times if they actually take the time to look up the latest research on whether video games are harmful.

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    FrodoBaggins

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    What happened to responsible parents?

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    JasonR86

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    I'm glad he weighed in as a healthcare professional about addiction and as a professional moralist about the ills of gaming. As a professional quantum physicist, let me tell you about the myth of "gravity."

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    Shindig

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    I'll be honest, I was definitely addicted as a kid. As I've got older, it all subsided.

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    nutter

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    - Disagree with the gut response of banning shit out-of-the-gate.

    - Totally agree that social media and Games as a Service are some nefarious shit.

    I could go on about social media’s phony bullshit, but I’ll focus on games.

    Anyone else totally puzzled by this week’s take on Borderlands 3 on the Bombcast? What I find refreshing about what little we know about Borderlands is that it doesn’t seem to be a live game. It doesn’t seem like there will be social spaces. I swear, these pushes to make games indefinitely profitable are absolutely ruining the games themselves. I can’t stomach the idea of more Destiny, Division, Anthem, or others of that ilk. Those transparent systems are fucking nauseating.

    Fortnite Save the World is a-ok, though!

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    pappafost

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    #7  Edited By pappafost

    It's such a silly argument. Why would a past-time need to have some benefit to society? The only requirement it has is to be fun, relaxing, and ideally inexpensive.

    The side benefit of a game with worldwide popularity is you can argue how much trouble it is keeping the bored 'mischievous' youth out of. (These kinds of folks do worry about those 'youth'.) When Fortnite is banned, all these bored kids will form street gangs for all we know. You gotta think of the bigger picture Harry! LOL.

    I think I'm correct in saying that people only value their own past-times, and don't really understand the past-times that others value. Prince Harry thinks Fortnite is dumb, and many Fortnite players probably think his recreational activities are dumb. He can think it's dumb all he wants but wanting to BAN it? Come on! I wonder what past-times Prince Harry values? Does he make sure they are 'valuable to society'?

    Take these other recreational pursuits for example:

    Golf - You're walking around in the woods hitting a ball for no reason, wasting a lot of land and irrigation water in the process.

    Bird-watching - What are you accomplishing? You're not a scientist.

    Wood-working - You wasted 8 hours building a worse table than you could have bought online.

    Building model trains - You wasted 300 hours building a small model town on a table in your garage? For what benefit?

    Going to the beach - You drove all the way to the beach to sit there and get skin cancer. What a waste of fossil fuels!

    Conclusion:

    The real reason Fortnite and all of the things above are valuable to society is that they are stress relief for the person doing them.

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    BoOzak

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    #8  Edited By BoOzak

    I assume much like Pogs and Pokemon cards that schools have already tried to ban it. (just going by my experience growing up) I do find the idea of Prince Harry thinking he has some actual power to be quite humorous though.

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    deactivated-6321b685abb02

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    Heh, Harry's really scraping the barrel for worthwhile causes it seems. Surely there are some actual important things he could be campaigning for/against.

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    hippie_genocide

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    Ok, great. This guy, for whom it was determined since his inception wouldn't have to work a day in his life, wants to tell everyone else how they should spend their leisure time? Just sit up in your palace eating your tea and scrumpets, no one needs to actually know what you think. And I don't even like or play Fortnite.

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    Efesell

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    There's a nuanced take here that isn't even very hard to reach but instead you go for ban this sick filth.

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    Quantris

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    What an infuriating position. Begs the question of how does he even know that Fortnite specifically is "created to addict"? Someone check his phone because I think somebody is projecting. Or maybe he's a hardcore PUBG maximalist.

    Like yes, if your kid just wants to play Fortnite all the time then just tell them "no, clean your room". I would certainly accept that some children need strict regimenting of their play time (Fortnite or otherwise). Though separating the idea of attentive parenting from that of a nanny state might be beyond Prince Harry.

    The elephant in the room is: what is the EU's take?

    I hope they actually do officially discuss this with Epic and I hope Epic has the balls to just say "ban it if you want, that is totally the government's prerogative to limit the freedom of its citizens".

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    jackv211

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    Jetlag

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    The rich always know what's best for the poors.

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    stantongrouse

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    Oh just imagine if anyone here in the UK actually listened to the royal family. Most of what they say seems to be taken on like the advice of a drunk uncle at a party. You know there might be something that you can take away from it but as it is coming from the least informed mind in the room most of it is brushed off with a smile and a nod.

    Harry and William seem way more popular overseas than I realised, I only saw coverage of this on here. But then at the height of Parliament rubbish yesterday it had to stop due to a leak in the ceiling. Us Brits seem to be chasing the incompetent nation award from all angles at the moment. And we can always count on the royals to help!

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    soulcake

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    #16  Edited By soulcake

    Al Hail Prince Harry may he Prosper and ban Fortnite FOREVER!

    "K Harry listen up i got this great plan where we infect Fortnite with a bitcoin miner and all the profits go directly to the House of Windsor." We all benefit kids get to play and you get richer!

    @stantongrouse

    you can always get worse and be Belgium we still got the record of "longest time without government" 541 Days That's More Then Iraq and that was a country that's got a recent war and a civil war :S.

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    stantongrouse

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    #17  Edited By stantongrouse

    @soulcake: Not to derail the Harry conversation, how did/do you guys cope without a full government? I have the feeling we would be better off without for a while...

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    soulcake

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    #18  Edited By soulcake

    @stantongrouse: So we gave all the power to one guy and gave him a budget 40% of what you normally get and he did a amazing job!

    I also point out that, that person then took his resignation.

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    stantongrouse

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    @soulcake: If only there were one person in our government I actually trusted with that much responsibility.

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    cikame

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    As much as i don't like Fortnite, i don't feel inclined to listen to Prince Harry.
    Maybe get a job (i know being a prince is a job, and i'm paying him to do it).

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    monkeyking1969

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    I think the way Fortnight and many other shlooters are run is nefarious. And, I think gamers need to stop hiding behind what they knew about games growing up. This is not like when parents complained about shooting games making people violent. These games have gambling addiction triggers, they are not being attacked on shaky studies about violence. As gamers we should be VERY eager for studies, this is our own health, wellbeing, and savings on the line. There need to be more studies about what tools and mechanisms exists in these games that mirror those of gambling. ANd those mechanisms need to be either legislated out for games or treated under that law as gambling.

    The less adult gamer take this topic seriously the more I think we are in real trouble, because these loot box games DO present a real problem for teens and many adults. I see a lot of knee -jerk responses, too few people are asking for studies that would have real answers. I feel like people don't want real answer because they know there IS something troubling about Shlooters and games with gambling elements.

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    BoOzak

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    @monkeyking1969: I dont think anyone here is against the banning of loot boxes, if that were what Prince Harry were trying to do I think he might have some ground to stand on. (Not that anything he says or does actually matters)

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    Efesell

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    @boozak: I dunno I would be pretty against just the BANNING of loot boxes too, but at least that would have been a more focused argument to make.

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    BoOzak

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    @efesell: I get that people hate banning and censorship in general (although I dont think this falls under that) but I feel like lootboxes have negatively effected game design in some really shitty ways. I'm curious why you wouldnt want to get rid of them, it's not as if randomisation wouldnt be a thing in RPGs, it just wouldnt be monetised.

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    rocketblast0063

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    What happened to responsible parents?

    Good question. Instead we have to ban everything.

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    Hayt

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    #26  Edited By Hayt

    On the one hand this is a awful take. On the other hand Fortnite bad.

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    stayflip

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    I'd rather they banned the royal family.

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    Dixavd

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    I was interested in looking further into this story rather than the four lines originally quoted in the Daily Express(and no other source).

    Prince Harry was at an event for the Charity "Heads Together" which is a UK-based charity spearheaded by the Royals aiming to tackle Mental Illness. This event was specifically about mental health with young people and took place at a YMCA (Young Men's Christian Association) which provides access to accommodation for young people and families. Invited were the prince, representatives of the charity and schemes, young people to speak about their stories, and mental health experts (I assume journalists were included to cover the event).

    Strangley, he wasn't there to make a speech or statement (or even talk about fortnite, video games or social media), he just did photo-ops with a ballet class, and then sat at a discussion table for a long time speaking to those invited. Supposedly, he said these things to someone as part of many normal conversations over the day and a journalist quoted him only on this. In contrst, he's not even quoted once on the charity's own news page for the event. Instead, the focus is on quoting individuals on their personal experiences with mental illness along with mental health experts at the event.

    It seems unfair to scrutinise him on this and argue he even wants to ban Fortnite when we don't even know the context of these quotes. For all we know, it could have been in a conversation about someone describing how addiction to video games was the cause of them needing this charity's accommodation (in which case, reacting with such emotive language would be completely expected and no one should confuse it with political statements).

    This just seems like poor journalism sparked by a single journalist quoting him out of context with no way of verifying why he said it. If anything, this just seems to show how quickly social media can spread some quotes and ridicule them.

    I'm not a royalist (personally, I think they should be stripped of even their performative powers) but I do care about mental health charities as someone who similar charities to cope with my own mental illness... so I'm just sad that this has been the total focus of this story. I hope the people who bravely shared their stories at the event felt listened to there, because they've certainly been ignored by the media.

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    Onemanarmyy

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    #29  Edited By Onemanarmyy

    @dixavd:

    Thank you for the context. It already sounded strange to me that a member of the royal house would openly lobby for a law to be put in place. That f2p games such as Fortnite employ a bunch of tricks that are an assault on the psyche shouldn't be controversial, we can see those tactics across games and understand what behavior they promote. I've played Dota for years & years, and while it's an amazing game, i'm not blind to the casino aspects that you can engage in if you want to. I've sold locked chests for the price of new games to people that crave to look cool / hope for the 1% chance that they can cash out even more. Whether we're okay with those tactics or how we could make them less harmful is a more interesting debate than debating whether Harry should just shut up and be pretty or not.

    Yes, we can just lay the blame at parents that let Johnny sit in front of the console for 12 hours, but when Johnny's friends are all grinding their battlepasses in the meantime, Johnny will have to play outside by himself. When i look back on my youth, the biggest motivator to go outside was having kids available to play with. When that society has changed completely, you're suddenly asking a whole block of parents to all have similar rules in place so that kids can actually make the intrinsic decision to have fun with the other kids outside. Now it will always be a battle of parents making their kid leave their friends on Fortnite to go hang out by themselves, hoping that they don't just visit a friend to play fortnite over there. And suddenly Johnny is the guy in the friendgroup that didn't put enough time in to get the next battlepass or get that cool emote.

    This video is not very concise, but it does showcase some of the systems that are put into place to entice you to spend money, feel bad for not spending & spending as much time with the game as you can.

    Loading Video...

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