![]() ![]() After all, Valve got there first with its Mac game store on Steam, and has a growing selection of over 80 games vying for your attention. ![]() You might reasonably ask why anyone should care. Most of them are absolute junk, obviously, but there are plenty that are worth checking out if you happen to have a half-decent Mac. Rather than simply bolt yet another section onto its increasingly clunky iTunes App Store, Apple decided to open a standalone Mac App Store on January 6th, complete with around 200 games to choose from. But whether it intended for it to happen or not, the vast success of game sales on its various iOS devices has given the Cupertino giant reason to try and tap into Mac gaming as well. You see this all happen from a distance, it's incredible to watch, and by the end the island has turned upside-down and there is the whole new season 3 map to see.It's fair to say that gaming on Macs has hardly been Apple's number one priority over the years. Season 2's climax happened on December 5, 2021, an event called The End where players undertook a roughly half hour mission and, part of the way through, the island the game is set on starts flipping. I haven't touched on the ongoing in-game story which, while naturally quite daft, also allows the game to do things like bring in a mothership hovering above the map, or introduce the corruption cubes hunt, as well as build to these climactic season-ending events where, and again credit where credit is due, the outcomes feel consequential. The Spider-Man tie-in may have been predictable, for example, but the fact Epic introduced a web-swinging mechanic to the entire game alongside a new map that much better suited it shows a developer determined to double-down and do more of what it does well. The fact remains that it chooses to make bold decisions about the game and has the capacity to surprise in how far it will go. Yes of course Epic has the money to do whatever it likes. There are plenty of flash-in-the-pans in the games industry but Fortnite and its enormous success are now almost part of the scenery: To the extent it almost feels like we take Fortnite's ambition for granted. It is to Fortnite's enormous credit, however, that it is definitely at the forefront of something huge: Even if that's only showing everyone else how to build around and support a live service game. But Fortnite as any kind of metaverse will always be bound to what Fortnite's audience responds to, and the wider way in which the metaverse is being pitched by companies like Meta-nee-Facebook seems quite distinct. Putting on a virtual concert with a famous artist is one thing even building a whole new game mode for a one-off event is fine. How much further this can all go is the big question. They tend to be time-limited special modes where players are either watching a spectacle (with the ability to move around) or one-off spaces like the King exhibition: You watch Ariana Grande or visit that museum in Fortnite but, at those moments, Fortnite is just the vector for something else, something distinct. What gives Fortnite's claims some credence in this respect is that the core of the game, the reason so many players log-in regularly, is not really a part of its big events. And it probably does: better than anything else that's been called a metaverse, for sure. I suppose, having raised the 'm' word, it's worth pausing over whether Fortnite fits that rather ill-defined label. Monopoly? Okay, you got me there: Maybe that was a true metaverse moment. To my old and wizened mind, this ties in with a lot of influencer culture and the desire to touch or be associated with luxury. I'm sorry for talking this much about brand synergy, but what we might call 'aspirational' brands are a big part of the appeal also. With The Avengers, for example, the Russo brothers (directors of Infinity War and Endgame) liked the game and suggested 2020's Thanos crossover, before co-directing the opening cinematic for March 2021's Chapter 2 Season 6. The superheroes are worth briefly pausing over, because it goes both ways: Part of Fortnite's appeal has always been that, regardless of what Epic is doing in the game, plenty of famous folk play it outside the game. Fortnite's audience skews towards the younger side, so superheroes and hot Netflix shows are high on the list, as are other classic videogame series. It's easy enough to pick out some of the themes Epic is pursuing, and why they make sense. ![]()
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