Fortnite Season 3 is in full swing, and that means its new Battle Pass is for sale as well. There are now 100 tiers in the pass which dole out 100 different rewards, ranging from emotes to gliders to skins and everything in between.
While Fortnite in its original form did have loot boxes (Piñatas), the Battle Royale mode has avoided them to date, instituting this subscription-like Battle Pass instead. And given all the talk about loot boxes frustrating players and attracting the attention of legislators these days, I wonder if this might be the next big thing in microtransactions, if other games want to avoid controversy like Epic has been able to.
While Fortnite isn’t the first ever game to do something like this, it has popularized the Battle Pass system more than others, and the more I play Fortnite the easier it is to see why this system feels so rewarding, and how it could work in other games.
The Battle Pass system creates a sense of meaningful, purposeful progression that other games lack. Yes, it’s true that if you just play a lot of Overwatch you’ll get loot boxes which will get you skins and other prizes. But I would argue there’s something a lot more gratifying about seeing a clear roadmap of where you’re trying to go, in this case 100 tiers of reward items, where you can see exactly what comes next as you make progress. Ah, I’m only five tiers away from that glider, or I’m only twenty tiers away from that wicked John Wick skin.
Very few games have this these days. Practically everything is down to RNG whether its PUBG loot drops, Overwatch boxes, Destiny engrams, and so on. Yes, you can still end up with the gear that you want eventually, but all of it is encased in this randomized reward system that can be immensely frustrating, with the only concession is that in some of these games maybe you can build up enough duplicate currency to buy a few items outright. But Fortnite even does that aspect better. It’s gone back to the days of allowing players to buy specific items right off the rack. Know you’re not going to make it to tier 100 but want that skin anyway? Shell out $20 for it. That’s double what the entire Battle Pass costs, but it allows players who want to spend the cash to do it, and it allows players who want to earn these items to do that with enough work as well. $10 for theoretically all 100 tier items in a game like this feels like a steal in this day and age.
The Battle Pass reminds me of and old school subscription model. Battle Royale is free, but to get rewards to playing, you pay $10 per Battle Pass every time one rolls around, which creates an ongoing revenue stream for Epic and something to work toward for an entire season. Because Fortnite BR is free I think this works better than it might in other games, since players don’t feel bad paying $10 every so often for a game they play religiously for free otherwise, but I can also see it working in other titles.
I am picturing a $10 Overwatch season where players can slowly earn 100 new items through achieving various objectives and hitting milestones. I can see Destiny 2 using its new seasons to be actually that, seasons, and converting Eververse into a Battle Pass-like reward store where the more you play Destiny the more of its cool items you earn rather than being forced to gamble for paid engrams or earn them ultra-slowly and still be subject to RNG.
I would imagine that yes, revenue might prove to be lower with this system. All of these loot box formats are designed for one purpose, to get big spenders to not just shell out $10 for boxes, but dozens, hundreds or even thousands of dollars in some cases as they hunt down specific items in the randomized pool. But it seems like every game being infested with loot boxes is becoming an unsustainable environment. There’s only so much cash to spend, randomized rewards are frustrating, and their psychologically addictive properties are attracting the attention of legislators all over the world. We may be far away from laws gimping loot box sales, but something like Fortnite’s Battle Pass seems like it’s future-proofing, a reward system that fans love that has no actual element of randomness in it, which means it can’t be confused for gambling.
Fortnite could have fallen in line and done standard loot boxes like anyone else, but mixing flat cash purchases with its Battle Pass, it’s created a system that’s better than most on the market, and a big part of the reason why the game continues to be so successful. I hope other titles consider this path, and follow suit.
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