Susie O’Brien: Fortnite game is no child’s play
KIDS across Melbourne have been surviving a zombie apocalypse — on screen at least. Is game Fortnite the ultimate parental bribe material?
Susie O'Brien
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‘MUM, I had three kills today, it was GREAT!!!”
These are not words most parents would expect a nine-year-old to utter.
And yet, this is how my younger son greeted me after a play at a friend’s house over the school holidays.
He’d been playing a computer game called Fortnite.
If you have kids aged about 10 and upwards, chances are the recent school holidays involved a fortnight of Fortnite in your house.
If your kids are too busy surviving a zombie apocalypse to get to dinner on time, then they’re probably playing Fortnite.
It’s a game where 100 players at a time parachute on to an island, each initially armed with only a pickaxe. They fight each other with a collection of crossbows, rifles and grenade launchers and the last fighter standing is the winner.
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It’s got 40 million players, so your kids are probably playing it with their friends even if you don’t know about it. Although it’s more popular with boys, girls are playing it too.
Part of Fortnite’s appeal is that it’s free (yay!) and kids can play with other kids.
It’s full of action and adrenaline, which makes it utterly addictive. If your kids scream at the screen and have breakdowns when they’re forced to stop, then they’re certainly playing Fortnite.
Fortnite fans get stroppy when they’re told to get off in order to go to bed/do homework/set the table for dinner/act like a normal human being. They’ll probably say something like: “But I can’t stop, I haven’t finished my game yet.”
They will always want, “just one more go” and if they’re not playing the game, they’re watching each other play it.
It’s no wonder parents around the country are tearing out their hair, staging interventions and pulling out the power plug.
My teenager defends his Fortnite addiction by telling me he’s “bonding with my mates”.
Yeah right. When I was a kid, bonding didn’t involve loading up with weapons and going on virtual hunting sprees.
When we were kids, we rode our bikes, played board games, read books and kicked the footy in the park.
Now kids are spending their down time playing a video game that’s a cross between Minecraft and The Hunger Games with a bit of Left 4 Dead thrown in.
Naturally, a whole industry of experts has emerged telling parents not to let kids under 12 play — even though thousands of younger kids are doing so without apparent harm.
They say it’s too violent and I have to admit it is a little confronting at first glance. However, when you look more closely, you see the violence is cartoonish rather than gory. Sometimes the killing involves people in silly costumes hacking at astronauts with fantasy-style weapons.
Some experts suggest parents should play with their kids. Yeah, no thanks. I have to secretly admit I love the time off it gives me.
Others suggest parents should tune into their kids’ headphones so they know what they are doing in the game.
Again, this is not something I’d ever do. Helicopter parenting has never been my style — even when it’s Black Hawk Special Ops. Give me Bachelor in Paradise and Grand Designs re-runs instead.
In any case, Fortnite is the ultimate parental bribe material.
“Hey kids, wanna parachute to the island? Just clean your room, do your homework, and make dinner while I try and work out what’s going on with Jarrod and Keira in Fiji.”
In some ways, they’re safer inside on the computer. Over the holidays my boys stopped playing Fortnite for a few minutes and went outside because I made them.
In 20 minutes they got a new toy stuck up a tree, fell off the trampoline and nearly broke a window with a cricket ball. I told them to get back on the PS4, quick smart.
My kids’ obsession with the game has made me realise how much computer games have changed since I was a kid. I used to play Leisure Suit Larry in the Land of the Lounge Lizards.
I remember helping Larry, who was a boxy, pixelated 38-year-old virgin who lived in his mother’s basement, get laid. In a series of seedy adventures, Larry would pick up prostitutes, get drunk in bars, dance the night away at a disco, fraternise with women in penthouse hot tubs, and lose money at the casino.
All of this didn’t turn me into a raging liquored-up loser Lothario with empty pockets, did it?
No. Well, not really. So why should we assume Fortnite is going to turn our kids into mini GI Joe’s?
If kids play this game and start bringing axes to school, then they’ve got more problems than could be caused by a mere game.
At this point, Fortnite is so hot it’s already starting to fade, my world-weary 14-year-old tells me.
“It’s a fad, Mum, it will come and go. Already I am not playing as much as I was,” he said.
“What’s the next big thing?” I asked him.
“Footy,” he said.
Aaaaah. As much as some things change, they also stay the same.
Susie O’Brien is a Herald Sun columnist
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