Epic Games’ Fortnite took the gaming world by storm after the release of its Battle Royale mode, and it often is touted as the reason why many saw esports or streaming as a legitimate career path. But is Fortnite pay-to-win?
Fortnite is not pay-to-win. You can purchase items in the in-game shop, but this won’t do anything to increase your chances of winning the game such as giving you extra equipment, more lives or anything like that.
Let’s look at how Fortnite works, what V-bucks are and what they’re used for, and whether Fortnite is a game worth playing.
Is Fortnite a Pay-to-Win Kind of Game?
Fortnite is not pay-to-win. Fortnite comes in several versions, including the free-to-play Battle Royale version and the purchasable Save the World version.
The Battle Royale pits you against up to 100 players on an island, where you have to loot weapons and materials to build structures, killing the other players.
Save the World is a player versus environment experience, where you team up with other human players against waves of enemies as they try to destroy the building you’re in.
There is a Fortnite item shop where you can purchase many things to use in the game, using the in-game currency V-bucks. V-bucks can be earned in several ways, including daily rewards if you have the Founder’s Edition of Save the World.
However, the things that can be purchased with V-bucks don’t make any difference to in-game performance. They are cosmetic items including outfits, gliders, backbling, emotes and other cosmetic differences like loading screens.
While these items cycle in and out of the shop, or are only available for a short time or via limited deals, they can be very sought after. However, the lack of item trading in the game means they can’t easily be obtained.
It is worth mentioning that some skin combinations with emotes can give a slight advantage in the game, such as being hard to see. This often sees these skins getting banned in the competitive mode where money is on the line.
Some of the Marvel skins, like Mystique, have been used to camouflage and hide, allowing easy kills via ambush especially when combined with a specific emotes.
The introduction of new stages and arenas can bring new color schemes that work very well, such as the biome area and the Jellie skin from the Fish Food set.
Otherwise, mechanics like building is just a skill that you get a lot better at, and also make some keybind configurations to make it easier to access walls and stairs.
Is It Worth Playing Fortnite?
Fortnite became one of the biggest games in the world, especially the Battle Royale mode, spawning a huge following and turning into a massive esport. And now when you have the answer on your question if Fortnite is pay-to-win, you can say that it is worth playing Fortnite.
It is still possible to become a professional Fortnite player, and Epic Games, the developer of Fortnite, is still very invested in running weekly, monthly and other large tournaments offering hundreds to hundreds of thousands of dollars as prize money.
Having earnt over 15 billion dollars since release, there is still a lot on offer but the huge player base means the competitive scene is very high skill, meaning it is not so easy to play for a few weeks and then become a millionaire with prize money.
However, Fortnite does offer many ways to earn money using its platform, such as the Support-a-Creator program. If you are over 13 and have a social media following of over 1000, you will get a unique code that gives you a percentage of items bought in the shop.
While it is difficult to get this to work for you, top creators make serious money from this, with the huge success of Ninja in the early days seeing him getting around $5 million a month from the scheme. [1]
You can just stream the game on Twitch or make videos for YouTube, with large Fortnite content creators making serious money from just playing the game. Of course, it is not so simple and you have to be very good or entertaining, but it is possible.
Fortnite is available on every platform, from mobile to PC and all the consoles, but there are some issues with purchasing V-bucks on certain platforms due to ongoing lawsuits and litigation.
The game is still getting constant updates, with big changes coming every now and then. One of the biggest recent changes was the total removal of building to see how the game would be without it, and also the chapters go through major changes every few months.
The collaborations with massive franchises like Marvel, Naruto and many others means there is always fresh content in the game, meaning new skins are always in the store, as well as free skins that you can earn via challenges and quests.
