One of the most popular games of all time is none other than the Battle Royale game called Fortnite. The third person shooter is not only famous for its unusual gameplay mechanic of building, which is different from building in Diablo 3, but also for its vibrant colors and and skins. For those who do not know, Fortnite has an item shop where players can buy purely cosmetic items in the form of skins, backblings, pickaxes, dances, weapon wraps, and gliders. While this seems to be a harmless concept in an otherwise free to play game, it has become the topic of lots of controversy.
As those who have been play the game know, there is more than one way to get skins in Fortnite. Not only can they be purchased from the shop, but they can also be acquired through bundles in the store, through promotions like with the iKonik skin, and through the battlepass. Some of these skins can become rare, and this is why they can be so controversial.
There are two ways that a skin can become rare: by being in a battle pass and by not being released in the shop a lot. While the battlepass guarantees that the skin will not come back, the shop does not. Some skins in the shop will get released once or twice, only to not come back for a year. When this happens, not only does the skin become rare, a lot of attention get drawn to it, causing people who do not have it to want it. Similarly, people who have it, want it to stay rare, as to them it is something special. Though many push for them to stay rare, they Epic Games often rereleases them back into the shop. They receive lots of backlash from this, but why do they still do it?
Well there are two reasons why they do this. The first reason is expected by many: money. When hype builds around a skin, lots of people will want to have it, causing lots of people to want to buy it if it returns to the shop. To most people who do not like the fact that their rare skin will be available to everybody, they say things like Epic is “money hungry” and get annoyed because they do not care that some people value their rare skins. However, there is another, much more overlooked reason.
Epic wants everyone to enjoy their cosmetic items. Similarly to why they banned stretched resolution, at the end of the day, Fortnite is a game that is made for everyone to enjoy, and no one wants to miss out on an item that was in the shop on a day they either couldn’t play, or when they did not even start playing the game yet. While many would have hoped that their Christmas skins would stay rare, for example, those who did not play during the previous Christmas time would still want to enjoy them. Remember, if you do not like how Epic brings back rare skins, just remember that someone else is enjoying it.
