A look at gaming phenomenon ‘Fortnite’ from the sidelines

“Just five more minutes, pleeeease. I’ll empty the dishwasher when I’m dead, I promise”, or “I need €8 to buy a dance and I won’t ask you for anything again ever.”

Baffling pleas and pledges like this are probably familiar to parents of Fortnite fans. The adventure/survival game has a monthly active user base of more than 40m and its popularity shows no sign of waning.

For the uninitiated, each game lasts around 30 minutes and involves 100 real players on an island where life is pretty tough — the last player or team standing is the winner.