Fortnite: Who makes up the Fortnite Community?

Fortnite has been the most successful game for two years running, with much of its success due to its massive and thriving global community. So who exactly makes up this community, and how does that affect the game?

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The Fortnite Community is very young

it’s the toxic fortnite 12 year olds lmao

— allothepeple324 (@999allo) July 11, 2020

Players of Fortnite are very young overall, with more than half of players asked usually reporting their ages as under the age of 24. Few surveys or collected demographic data includes people under the age of 18, likely for various legal reasons, but one study conducted by Newzoo found that 53% reported their ages as 10-25.

Fortnite itself lists its game for people aged 13 and up, and of course many players are quite willing and capable of ignoring these recommendations as well. Therefore, while we can’t know the exact percentage, we can assume that an overwhelming majority of players will be aged under 24. In addition, the group skews heavily male as well, and as a result many of the problems found within the game’s community are those typical to those of young men.

This youth also ends up coming through in the Fortnite competitive scene. The winner of the first Fortnite World Cup, Kyle “Bugha” Giersdorf, was just 16 when he won. Consider that even other competitive games rarely have top level competitors, let alone champions, at that age and it becomes clear just how much youth is a characteristic of Fortnite.

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The Fortnite community, the good and the bad

Fortnite is the dumpster that we keep our toxic 8-17 year olds in. That's the only reason it exists, get over it

— Crims0nsin (@crims0nsin) July 12, 2020

You don’t really need to be an expert to guess at what features you can expect to find in the Fortnite community are. The community has issues with toxicity, racism, sexism, and general hostility to many players. This negativity is rampant throughout the entire internet, most notably within communities predominantly composed of young men, and Fortnite is not likely to be an exception.

However, the community also serves as a platform for personalities and creators willing to stand above this negativity- well, most of the time anyway. Being a community, Fortnite players can unite and work together to bring out the best in themselves and others. However, for this to happen, the community will need to be carefully tended to in order to prevent the worst childish urges from taking over.

In effect, Epic has taken on the role of cultivating a child’s playspace and governing social interactions amongst the very young. Although they can’t really be expected to outright raise the children who play this game, their responsibility to provide tools and clear limitations on what is acceptable can’t be ignored either.