How Fortnite Became the Most Addicting Game In History
By Exploiting a Simple Psychological Phenomenon Fortnite is Near Impossible To Put Down
Everyone is playing Fortnite these days. Your girlfriend, your boyfriend, your boss, your dog, your grandma even. To these casual players, Fortnite seems like a goofy, lighthearted, third-person-shooter survival game that doesn’t have that much to it.
On the other hand, game-developers understand that — behind the scenes — Fortnite is a gaming MASTERPIECE that belongs next to the Mona Lisa in the halls of history.
There are too many problems plaguing titles like Call of Duty, League of Legends, and Overwatch — that Fortnite solves — to count. Instead, I’m going to focus on the big one. The psychological phenomenon Fortnite has captured fully:
“Lose by a little, win by a lot”
Every game-dev knows these words by heart because it’s what made Candy Crush millions of dollars. If you want an in-depth explanation of how this psychological phenomenon works then watch the video below:
In summary though, “lose by a little, win by a lot” heavily encourages people to keep playing a game because of two reasons.
- If a player loses the game by a little, they can examine the state of the game and note that they were “just one or two moves away from winning! I’ll win next time for sure!”
- If a player wins the game by a lot, they can examine the state of the game and note that they “are AMAZING at the game. I’m just going to knock out a few more levels while I’m on this hot streak.”
Candy Crush made millions of dollars exploiting this idea. The gaming studio ‘King’ programmed Candy Crush to ensure that when players lost, they only lost by ~1–5 moves. Furthermore, King programmed Candy Crush to dump loads of points on the player after they already won.
It worked. At one point Candy Crush was making $850,000 per day!
Which is certainly a hell of an accomplishment, but I’d argue that Candy Crush only artificially implemented “lose by a little, win by a lot.” By jamming their players with points that they didn’t earn after they already won and ensuring they lose by ~1–5 moves almost every game; competent players will notice a trend almost immediately.
Personally when I played Candy Crush, I felt like I was getting bamboozled more than an urge to keep playing.
Fortnite is different though. Candy Crush scratches the surface on “lose by a little, win by a lot” whereas Fortnite lives and breathes it….
…and it’s dangerous.
Fortnite is so addictive because when you lose, you only lose by a hair. Players in this game have deceptively low HP (even with full shields and health). Realistically, you’re never more than 5 assault rifle shots away from sheer death; and the moment you die, the first thing you see is the HEALTH BAR OF THE OPPONENT WHO SHOT YOU.
Fortnite players, how many times has this scenario happened to you? You’re in a room playing with some of your buddies. The buddy who is playing is in a heated gun fight with another player. The buddy playing dies and then immediately screams “dang it! They were sooooooo close to dying!”
Probably every freaking time. Epic Studios (the makers of Fortnite) know this. They made sure that gun fights almost always result in one player winning only by the skin of their teeth.
On the other hand though, the Fortnite map is YUGE. Once you do win a gun-fight, the likelihood of having to fight another player within the next 3–4 minutes is slim to none. This means you’re probably going to climb 10–30 ranks after winning just one simple gunfight! In fact, it seems like the consensus is that the overall winner of the entire game only averages ~5 kills.
Fornite is a game defined by how just 2 bullets is the difference between coming in 70th and 30th… that’s why it’s so addicting.
After losing in Fortnite, practically every gamer believes that those 2 bullets are going to fall their way next game.
Thanks for reading! If you’re interested in more video game content, check out part two here and follow me on twitter!
