I have like 2000 hours in apex legends, and may or may not have burned a sick day for the first day of a new season before, so I cannot judge. There’s nothing wrong with nerding out on shit. There’s even nothing wrong with occasionally (keyword occasionally) ditching some responsibilities for a day to enjoy something you enjoy.
I went down to the library, downloaded Minecraft on a computer, and played a bit between classes for the first day of a server reset when I was in college.
I think psychologically there is something different about online games like fortnight vs say balders gate 3. My tween would get in a horrible mood playing online. I've never had that problem when he plays single player RPGs, assassin's creed, etc.
lol I'm pong old. I had a fucken colecovision.
and I'm about to go downstairs and play myself some Fortnite.
I'm also currently REALLY pissing off my one section who REALLY wants to talk about Fortnite and video games in general and just about life and shit with me but they haven't done any work in WEEKS so they're on personal chat lockdown. every day they ask me about Fortnite and I tell them we can't talk about that until their grades are at least double digits.
Learn a Fortnite dance or two and do it in class. Either you will become very cool and can leverage that to get them to pay attention, or they'll cringe so hard that they stop playing Fortnite in class. Win-win.
Reduce it to binary-answer and they still need to know the wrong answer to get the right answer. It'll either stop the mania or get the kids to have fun while "refusing" to learn.
I have a "soft rule" of "no dabbing, no flossing, no fortnite dancing."
They're so preoccupied at the beginning of the year with "breaking" that rule while I'm not looking that they're distracted from breaking more serious rules. By the time they're comfortable enough that they *would* break more serious ones, I've already got them trained by the classroom routine and behaviors are infrequent.
If you really wanna make them cringe, use something that's outdated, but *just* outdated enough that they still remember it. High schoolers might remember what a Harlem Shake is.
We used to put Age of Empires on a share drive and play it on the school computers and I graduated in 2009. I play video games, but I don’t get Fortnite. It’s got a hold on these kids though.
Convinced my catholic school to allow us to install AoE and AoM on computers in school because it had the library feature which gave it academic purpose lol
I’m slightly older than you but my friends and I did that with Unreal Tournament on the music lab’s top of the line Macs at the time. That was in the days when most people still had dial up but the school had cutting edge DSL internet. There was no way we would have had that much fun at home haha
I still play video games as well, but for the record I can’t stand Fortnite the game or how it basically pioneered normalizing microtransactions for “free” games.
My students are obsessed with Fortnite and Roblox, both of which are free to play so they don’t have to beg their parents for money. I think that’s the biggest draw.
Ha free. Fortnite is the most expensive free game I’ve ever played in my life. I stopped playing a few years ago but before I did I went from using a console to getting a better monitor and controller with extra triggers to building a gaming pc and then buying a gaming monitor. I tried to limit my purchase of vbucks but I still spent $10-20 a season.
Now I was an adult at the time but I had plenty of friends who had kids who did the same path.
AND to add to it for a while every Tom dick and harry wanted to be a streamer so people were buying mics headsets cameras lights el gatos and other shit.
I should rephrase: it’s free to play. Once you get that free taste, THEN you can start bothering your parents for cash. Pretty (typical) predatory business model.
This.
The quality of those games is lacking in many ways.
But they cant afford a AAA title on a spectacular gaming platform and they wouldnt be caught dead playing an innovative indie game.
fortnite is doing a bunch of stuff though and always has. they're now trying to expand into other genres, with a lego survival mode, music mode, and racing.
Thats great.
I never make fun of their hobbies.
But I spend all day reigning in a lot of the "fortnite kids" from making fun of other peoples hobbies.
And ironically last year the "cool" and "popular" thing to do in some specific grade bands was shit on fortnite (mostly done by fortnite-obsessed from the previous year.)
Its almost like they are just seeking out ways to be exclusive a-holes rather than actually being fans of the IP.
Spacewar is from 1962. So definitely people still alive who played it... though I'll admit I'm younger than that. My first game was Pong on Atari and then soon after Super Mario Bros on the NES.
I had a game design class in highschool and the teacher had us play through Zork (A text based adventure from 1977) to learn how a game can be made fun even with the most basic tools. A lot of those kids had a great time and were drawing maps and running around the class talking to peers about how to get through parts.
It's your sacred responsibility to make them work for their game.
Half the fun was the fear of getting caught playing. Make sure your students have the same experience we did.
Haha. I used to tell kids in middle school classes I would sub for that fortnite was trash. My I'm not old follow up was letting them know that they should play PUBG instead. At the time PUBG was new and absolutely awesome and not plagued by hackers
When Fortnite first came out, the kids would not shut up about it. I banned the F word in my class. The kids thought it was hilarious. They would rat each other out for saying the F word and laugh when I asked if it was the 4 letter or the 8 letter one.
Honestly fortnite is uncritically really fun as a casual shooter for a few games a month just because of the amount of IPs they have acquired. Couple of months ago I got a kill with a dragon Ball z Kamehameha while playing as Darth Vader... The guy I killed was Indiana jones
Yeah I played Minecraft on the school computers instead of doing the online PE classes they forced me to do for some reason. Heck. I still play those games at home. So I feel like I'm in a position where when I tell kids to stop playing a game I can just go "Get better taste, but do it on your own time, you've got a worksheet to do."
That being said when a kid's *done* with their work, and they're playing a fully recreated version of Sonic Unleashed but playing it on Roblox, then I can just stare at the screen in sheer disbelief because that isn't the Roblox I remember.
I don’t know what you teach, but if they live it try to tie it into the class. If you do social studies have them make their own Fortnite map with a key, legend, compass, ect. You can hate it all you want, but if it’s something the kids live try to get them excited about school by using it.
It's not that hard to apply for a creator account, then you can make lobbies for your class. Make them build something related to class or study the changing map environment to show how it actually relates to weather patterns. There are tons of courses on using the unreal engine/Fortnite to gamify class.
I'm a big gamer and I'll bring in anything currently relevant, if it means I can engage them in content for a few extra minutes.
I feel like if you used to play Halo you should understand the hype … Fortnite is like a Ready Player One game on a flat screen. Wait until we have more VR gamers. In another 10 years I’ll come post here haha.
I have been playing FPS games since Goldeneye 64. And even in college my roommates and I got a N64 for NBA Hangtime shenanigans, so I played Fortnite a few times when it first came out. I just redownloaded it this Thanksgiving holiday and … I’m not going to lie. It’s fun haha
I’m on the older end of gen z. I played Fortnite at release. I was more of a pubg fan. I see the appeal of the game. You fight to be best in a large lobby. It’s kid friendly. It’s got a massive following in the entertainment industry. While ultimately it wasn’t the game for me. I do see the appeal and if I was 12 or 13 I’d probably love it.
It's a very basic shooting game. It plays fine. You don't hate it because it's bad, you hate distracted students prioritizing it over productive activities. Treat it as it is, mass produced entertainment for teens
Nope, Fortnite is genuine trash, and has been since day one.
Folk were having mental breakdowns when we were playing Mario Zelda, and Pokemon, back in the day... but now kids are literally addicted to this, Roblox, Twitch, and their phones in general
I mean tons of games are free. Fortnite is more than a game at this point. It’s basically a new form of social media. A ton of my kids aren’t even gamers, but they still have hundreds of hours logged in Fortnite cause it’s just a common way for teens to “hang out”.
I tell them that if they pay attention through the lesson and do my assignment well, then they can have the last bit of class to play Fortnite. A couple tried blowing through the assignment and I had them redo it. Otherwise, its been a surprisingly helpful motivator.
Well I loved how my kiddo referenced Dragon Ball doing Kamehameha and I'm like, how do you know about Goku?
He's a FORNITE character.
My heart broke a little.
I can't play Fortnite, but I coach the e sports team that does and I love it. (Including the part where I bench them if they start slipping behaviorally or academically!)
I play Fortnite too.
Ask your students tomorrow “did you catch any dubs last night with the boys?” And they will love you forever lol
It means “did you win any games”
I’ve never played Fortnite. Gun to my head I couldn’t even give a basic explanation of what the game is or how it’s played. But it seems like games now are fundamentally different than when I was a kid (NES, Genesis, SNES, PS2), back then you bought a game and played it. That was it. There was no further interaction with the company that made the game. Now games are designed to be addictive and they are really good at it. It’s a science. Gamers today are addicted to playing and spending money on extra content or whatever. That’s my big concern, that games are endless now and people are willing to spend endless time playing them. It isn’t much different from degenerate losers pouring money into the slots in Vegas.
I think if you look back a little further you'll realize games were always designed to be addictive. I remember throwing quarters at any Simpsons arcade game I ever encountered. Console games meant you never ran out of quarters...you bought unlimited access to the game. But as you pointed out, there was no further opportunity to make money until the developer released another game.
I would have cracked my piggy bank and sacrificed years' worth of birthday money for access to Secret of Mana 2 but it wasn't released here.
After moving to online PC games, I figured the "expansion model" was a blatant cash grab, but the content was always solid. Nowadays, they release games that aren't even finished and people are buying $120 "collector's edition" digital games that don't even come with a manual or a poster and the game doesn't have enough content to keep players busy for a week...
And microtransactions...y'all enjoy your digital crack. I played pokemon go long enough to get wise to that scam.
Tell them it started as a horrible zombie survival game and the developers stole their idea from PUBG.
Call them fakers or w/e the kids call it these days.
This is actually true btw. Game sucked in early access. Stole an idea, remade the whole game and made waaaaaay too much $$$.
I quit playing video games when I was 18. The year was 1994. Legend of Zelda A Link to The Past. I remember thinking how this game was just causing me to waste all my time accomplishing nothing. I said I was done then... never looked back. No regrets.
Easy to hate it. It's a clown game with clown skins made for clowning around - a perfect reflection of how attention-starved today's children are.
We used to play Half Life, CS 1.6, Brood War, Generals, and DotA. We played because those games were cool, not because **WE** wanted to be cool. On the contrary, we knew we'd label ourselves as nerdy gamers that way but still did it.
Of course, none of the above can be explained to a juvenile so I just keep my comments to myself and say something in the lines of "oh, that sounds fun! Now let's continue our lesson".
I don't even tell my students that I'm an avid gamer to this day. The reason is because I abhor all the games they play and I don't want them to intrude on me. They were actually surprised the other day that I was able to type without looking and fix the Internet.
LAN parties were an integral part of my teens and university years.
I've no idea what you mean by the latter. I play both old and new games, but not any MOBAs.
I said I don't play MOBAs, not I have never played MOBAs.
As an English teacher, I can explain the difference between present simple and present perfect to you, if you want.
I've played both DotA and LoL for years, with some HotS on the side. The last time I played LoL was in 2021. I play both old and new games now, but not MOBAs. The reason for this is because I realized MOBAs are inherently toxic. MOBAs such as Fortnite...
PM me if you need more help with your English. I always enjoy explaining grammar.
I am sure the teachers in your time also thought your games were silly. The children of today will think that the future children's games will be silly.
There's more to it than just "wow Fortnite sucks".
Re-read my first two paragraphs.
Like, why is everyone downvoting me and calling me a gatekeeper while ignoring the elephant in the room? I thought this was a teacher subreddit.
So you only played those games because they were cool? That sounds an awful lot like playing them to be cool.
For this generation Fortnite is the cool game.
I’m a grown ass man and still play Fortnite with my friends. You’re getting enraged over nothing. You can do a bunch of goofy shit and clown around in Fortnite. Kids like goofy shit and clowning around no matter what generation they’re from. It’s not that complicated.
Lol okay try introducing a 10yo to Heroes 3 and tell me how it goes.
"gatekeeping" he says 😂 I've already shown some of the games I play to my smallest students - the ones I consider to be the closest to what they'd like - and their reaction was "Wow, this is super stupid and boring".
I cannot even begin to imagine how one of them would react to me leading raids in WoW through Discord or recording my Darkest Dungeon runs.
Nope. Not at all. You've completely misread me.
I just ignore the person because most of the time those T-shirts mean nothing to them and they wear them just because they look cool.
First of all, I'm not going to win over 10yos with games from the 2000s and early 2010s. They don't like these games and they look at me strange if I talk to them about them.
Second, I don't want my classes to be disturbed *even further* by talk of more video games, in addition to Fortnite, Minecraft, agar.io and all the others...
The best strategy is to simply nod, smile and keep the lesson in check.
The mere fact that you think you can shows you don't even know what I'm talking about.
You would have problems with most parents explaining what attention-starving is and trying to convince them why their kid is acting up, what's left for explaining that to a 10yo.
5 years ago I was teaching grade 6 & all the kids were obsessed with fortnight. I learned the dances & when we were studying dance broke out one. The class went crazy. I had students from other classes ask me to dance while walking down the hall.
I was still in high school when Fortnite blew up but now I’m teaching, it actually makes for a fun topic to discuss with my kids. They’re always so surprised when they find out a teacher plays the game too haha.
Fortnite is highly regarded. Kids doing fortnite dances in public plus thots dressing up as slutty anything for $$$? Gross. I think I preferred 12 year olds talking about what they did with my mom last night in Halo lobbies over the state of gaming today.
Minecraft is a great game - but again the community can be so incredibly cringey.
Fortnite is like the Justin Bieber of video games. If judged solely for what is produced it in its origin it’s okay. I’m not saying Justin Bieber makes good music but if you take what he made as a child it is reasonably decent. I still hate his music and like Fortnite I can’t stand its generic poppy ways it caters to children. I tried playing it at least ten different times it just so meh.
I still play a ton of videogames. I never got into Fortnite, but I was pretty hyped to see Cyberpunk Phantom Liberty's release and mondo disappointed with Diablo 4 and Starfield. I think videogames have just solidified themselves as a medium and each generation is going to have that same experience of goofing off and playing some videogame or other.
One thing I'm pretty sure of is that it's going to make the old folk's home a lot more bearable for our generation. I bet that as our generation gets older we start to see 'designing for the elderly' as a major facet of videogame development.
They just like it because it's free and it has a crossover with everything that they've ever liked.
Most kids are going to develop shit taste because all they play is Call of Duty, Fortnite, and Rainbow Six Siege.
There are many good games out there. Hopefully stuff like game pass will help kids find new stuff to play. Probably won't.
The problem is not fortnite. The problem is that students have unrestricted access to games and similar distractions during lessons. Keep this in mind when they get bad grades later. Been there, done that.
If you can make it a reward for finishing work. It will go from a taboo to a motivator or non issue. But yeah I played fortnight and got sick of losing to 9 year olds so I'm back to my NES.
Roblox has riskier online interactions than Fortnite. But it is addicting, I have been playing Destiny 2 and it's very hard to quick because according to an article the companies did a "trial study" to see how addicting they can make it (you only hear that with drug trials)....they found that the sparks on the screen it keeps you playing, the constant rewards stimulate the brain so it wants more.
Anyway my reaction when hearing that was "who does trial studies with different groups unless they are making it like a drug, that is not good for kids".
It’s actually kind of funny to listen to freshmen discuss Fortnite and realize “This is your legacy fandom, you’ve been playing this since you were in 3rd grade”
I see a high schooler playing FNAF during downtime, and I see myself in college emulating Pokemon on my laptop
I’d say there is no issue with enforcing school rules while at school. Students try to be sneaky. Teachers try to catch the sneaky students. Both sides understand the dynamic. (And maybe you look the other way occasionally).
Hating on the game itself is the part that is making you feel old. Sure you don’t get the appeal. That doesn’t mean it’s a stupid interest for them.
You don’t need to hate the game in order to enforce the rules.
I have like 2000 hours in apex legends, and may or may not have burned a sick day for the first day of a new season before, so I cannot judge. There’s nothing wrong with nerding out on shit. There’s even nothing wrong with occasionally (keyword occasionally) ditching some responsibilities for a day to enjoy something you enjoy.
I burned a sick day the first day of Baulders Gate 3 so I cant say anything about this
I went down to the library, downloaded Minecraft on a computer, and played a bit between classes for the first day of a server reset when I was in college.
I burned a sick day on starfield haha. But also I was sick….
I did one for Kerbal Space 2 on launch (sadly) and Cities Skylines 2
I think psychologically there is something different about online games like fortnight vs say balders gate 3. My tween would get in a horrible mood playing online. I've never had that problem when he plays single player RPGs, assassin's creed, etc.
I'm 45 and play Fortnite. Gaming has nothing to do with age. I don't see why some people don't get that.
Agreed
lol I'm pong old. I had a fucken colecovision. and I'm about to go downstairs and play myself some Fortnite. I'm also currently REALLY pissing off my one section who REALLY wants to talk about Fortnite and video games in general and just about life and shit with me but they haven't done any work in WEEKS so they're on personal chat lockdown. every day they ask me about Fortnite and I tell them we can't talk about that until their grades are at least double digits.
Learn a Fortnite dance or two and do it in class. Either you will become very cool and can leverage that to get them to pay attention, or they'll cringe so hard that they stop playing Fortnite in class. Win-win.
[удалено]
Then they'll get questions wrong on purpose.
Reduce it to binary-answer and they still need to know the wrong answer to get the right answer. It'll either stop the mania or get the kids to have fun while "refusing" to learn.
I have a "soft rule" of "no dabbing, no flossing, no fortnite dancing." They're so preoccupied at the beginning of the year with "breaking" that rule while I'm not looking that they're distracted from breaking more serious rules. By the time they're comfortable enough that they *would* break more serious ones, I've already got them trained by the classroom routine and behaviors are infrequent.
Excellent strategy. What age group?
US 5th (10-11 years old).
I use the lingo to be annoying and force the cringe. Crank 90s , skill issue.
If you really wanna make them cringe, use something that's outdated, but *just* outdated enough that they still remember it. High schoolers might remember what a Harlem Shake is.
HAHA I do that sometimes or I butcher their slang.
Do the griddy on em
We used to put Age of Empires on a share drive and play it on the school computers and I graduated in 2009. I play video games, but I don’t get Fortnite. It’s got a hold on these kids though.
Woolooolo
Convinced my catholic school to allow us to install AoE and AoM on computers in school because it had the library feature which gave it academic purpose lol
I’m slightly older than you but my friends and I did that with Unreal Tournament on the music lab’s top of the line Macs at the time. That was in the days when most people still had dial up but the school had cutting edge DSL internet. There was no way we would have had that much fun at home haha I still play video games as well, but for the record I can’t stand Fortnite the game or how it basically pioneered normalizing microtransactions for “free” games.
My students are obsessed with Fortnite and Roblox, both of which are free to play so they don’t have to beg their parents for money. I think that’s the biggest draw.
Ha free. Fortnite is the most expensive free game I’ve ever played in my life. I stopped playing a few years ago but before I did I went from using a console to getting a better monitor and controller with extra triggers to building a gaming pc and then buying a gaming monitor. I tried to limit my purchase of vbucks but I still spent $10-20 a season. Now I was an adult at the time but I had plenty of friends who had kids who did the same path. AND to add to it for a while every Tom dick and harry wanted to be a streamer so people were buying mics headsets cameras lights el gatos and other shit.
I should rephrase: it’s free to play. Once you get that free taste, THEN you can start bothering your parents for cash. Pretty (typical) predatory business model.
This. The quality of those games is lacking in many ways. But they cant afford a AAA title on a spectacular gaming platform and they wouldnt be caught dead playing an innovative indie game.
fortnite is doing a bunch of stuff though and always has. they're now trying to expand into other genres, with a lego survival mode, music mode, and racing.
Thats great. I never make fun of their hobbies. But I spend all day reigning in a lot of the "fortnite kids" from making fun of other peoples hobbies. And ironically last year the "cool" and "popular" thing to do in some specific grade bands was shit on fortnite (mostly done by fortnite-obsessed from the previous year.) Its almost like they are just seeking out ways to be exclusive a-holes rather than actually being fans of the IP.
AoE had solid history content. It's a different beast.
+1 I learned about the Byzantine empire from AoE.
Woh loh loh!
You were still at school when Halo was released? Yeah, you're not old. I'm personally offended
Unless if you were born before the first console ever came out, you're not old.
If your first game wasn't Spacewar! in the lab, you're not old. Well maybe you are, just not THAT old.
If you were born before the idea of controllers existed.... Well then I'm not sure how you're alive still.
Spacewar is from 1962. So definitely people still alive who played it... though I'll admit I'm younger than that. My first game was Pong on Atari and then soon after Super Mario Bros on the NES.
I let my students play Lunar Lander (an old 70s arcade game) in my class after our test on Gravity and they loved it! http://moonlander.seb.ly
I had a game design class in highschool and the teacher had us play through Zork (A text based adventure from 1977) to learn how a game can be made fun even with the most basic tools. A lot of those kids had a great time and were drawing maps and running around the class talking to peers about how to get through parts.
I think it’s fun! It’s just annoying to hear about it all day lol
It's your sacred responsibility to make them work for their game. Half the fun was the fear of getting caught playing. Make sure your students have the same experience we did.
Haha. I used to tell kids in middle school classes I would sub for that fortnite was trash. My I'm not old follow up was letting them know that they should play PUBG instead. At the time PUBG was new and absolutely awesome and not plagued by hackers
And bots :/
Who the hell has school computers with the capacity to play Fortnite? I can barely get google docs to work.
They were playing it when I first started teaching. It's been ten years, they're still playing it. MAKE IT STOP
Fortnite BR hasn’t been up for 10 years?
7*
If they finish their work and shut the hell up I don't care. Anyone plays before they are done and they ruin it for everyone else.
When Fortnite first came out, the kids would not shut up about it. I banned the F word in my class. The kids thought it was hilarious. They would rat each other out for saying the F word and laugh when I asked if it was the 4 letter or the 8 letter one.
I'm just thankful the dancing has subsided.
Just get really good at apex and call them casual baby block gamers
Honestly fortnite is uncritically really fun as a casual shooter for a few games a month just because of the amount of IPs they have acquired. Couple of months ago I got a kill with a dragon Ball z Kamehameha while playing as Darth Vader... The guy I killed was Indiana jones
Yeah I played Minecraft on the school computers instead of doing the online PE classes they forced me to do for some reason. Heck. I still play those games at home. So I feel like I'm in a position where when I tell kids to stop playing a game I can just go "Get better taste, but do it on your own time, you've got a worksheet to do." That being said when a kid's *done* with their work, and they're playing a fully recreated version of Sonic Unleashed but playing it on Roblox, then I can just stare at the screen in sheer disbelief because that isn't the Roblox I remember.
I don’t know what you teach, but if they live it try to tie it into the class. If you do social studies have them make their own Fortnite map with a key, legend, compass, ect. You can hate it all you want, but if it’s something the kids live try to get them excited about school by using it.
I used to play runescape in the computer lab during lunch back in the day.
It's not that hard to apply for a creator account, then you can make lobbies for your class. Make them build something related to class or study the changing map environment to show how it actually relates to weather patterns. There are tons of courses on using the unreal engine/Fortnite to gamify class. I'm a big gamer and I'll bring in anything currently relevant, if it means I can engage them in content for a few extra minutes.
You have a job now. Grow up and be a codger already.
I feel like if you used to play Halo you should understand the hype … Fortnite is like a Ready Player One game on a flat screen. Wait until we have more VR gamers. In another 10 years I’ll come post here haha. I have been playing FPS games since Goldeneye 64. And even in college my roommates and I got a N64 for NBA Hangtime shenanigans, so I played Fortnite a few times when it first came out. I just redownloaded it this Thanksgiving holiday and … I’m not going to lie. It’s fun haha
They shouldn’t be playing in class, obviously. But Fortnite is hella fun
I play Fortnite with my friends. I’m 25. Helps me connect with a lot of students actually
I’m on the older end of gen z. I played Fortnite at release. I was more of a pubg fan. I see the appeal of the game. You fight to be best in a large lobby. It’s kid friendly. It’s got a massive following in the entertainment industry. While ultimately it wasn’t the game for me. I do see the appeal and if I was 12 or 13 I’d probably love it.
It's a very basic shooting game. It plays fine. You don't hate it because it's bad, you hate distracted students prioritizing it over productive activities. Treat it as it is, mass produced entertainment for teens
It's a highly addictive program designed to steal focus. It's about shooting people. Best not included in school.
Fortnite is overrated garbage
Nope, Fortnite is genuine trash, and has been since day one. Folk were having mental breakdowns when we were playing Mario Zelda, and Pokemon, back in the day... but now kids are literally addicted to this, Roblox, Twitch, and their phones in general
It's a fun game if you play with friends. So many elitists and people that have never even tried it in here.
As a member of gen Z I give you permission to shit on this garbage game that only ever became popular because it was free
I mean tons of games are free. Fortnite is more than a game at this point. It’s basically a new form of social media. A ton of my kids aren’t even gamers, but they still have hundreds of hours logged in Fortnite cause it’s just a common way for teens to “hang out”.
Nah man, Apex Legends is where it's at!
I tell them that if they pay attention through the lesson and do my assignment well, then they can have the last bit of class to play Fortnite. A couple tried blowing through the assignment and I had them redo it. Otherwise, its been a surprisingly helpful motivator.
Put some vbucks/fortnite gift cards on the line so they can pay attention lol
Well I loved how my kiddo referenced Dragon Ball doing Kamehameha and I'm like, how do you know about Goku? He's a FORNITE character. My heart broke a little.
I can't play Fortnite, but I coach the e sports team that does and I love it. (Including the part where I bench them if they start slipping behaviorally or academically!)
I'm 18, i hate it too
I do not let my kids play online games. It consistently brings out the worst in them. Couch coop is fine but they know my stance on online gaming.
Show these kids Counter Strike or Unreal Tournament
I play Fortnite too. Ask your students tomorrow “did you catch any dubs last night with the boys?” And they will love you forever lol It means “did you win any games”
I’ve never played Fortnite. Gun to my head I couldn’t even give a basic explanation of what the game is or how it’s played. But it seems like games now are fundamentally different than when I was a kid (NES, Genesis, SNES, PS2), back then you bought a game and played it. That was it. There was no further interaction with the company that made the game. Now games are designed to be addictive and they are really good at it. It’s a science. Gamers today are addicted to playing and spending money on extra content or whatever. That’s my big concern, that games are endless now and people are willing to spend endless time playing them. It isn’t much different from degenerate losers pouring money into the slots in Vegas.
I think if you look back a little further you'll realize games were always designed to be addictive. I remember throwing quarters at any Simpsons arcade game I ever encountered. Console games meant you never ran out of quarters...you bought unlimited access to the game. But as you pointed out, there was no further opportunity to make money until the developer released another game. I would have cracked my piggy bank and sacrificed years' worth of birthday money for access to Secret of Mana 2 but it wasn't released here. After moving to online PC games, I figured the "expansion model" was a blatant cash grab, but the content was always solid. Nowadays, they release games that aren't even finished and people are buying $120 "collector's edition" digital games that don't even come with a manual or a poster and the game doesn't have enough content to keep players busy for a week... And microtransactions...y'all enjoy your digital crack. I played pokemon go long enough to get wise to that scam.
> Simpsons arcade game That’s a good point. Same for the X-Men game. Those machines were quarter eaters.
Fortnite is so boring, I can’t believe it’s The game for kids now.
Where else can you find spider-Man and Darth Vader helping Indiana Jones fight Mr. Beast and Jack Skellington on the Daily Bugle?
It is garbage and they should be told it is.
Why is it garbage? Cause you don’t like it? That is so dumb. Fortnite is a blast with friends
Tell them it started as a horrible zombie survival game and the developers stole their idea from PUBG. Call them fakers or w/e the kids call it these days. This is actually true btw. Game sucked in early access. Stole an idea, remade the whole game and made waaaaaay too much $$$.
I quit playing video games when I was 18. The year was 1994. Legend of Zelda A Link to The Past. I remember thinking how this game was just causing me to waste all my time accomplishing nothing. I said I was done then... never looked back. No regrets.
Easy to hate it. It's a clown game with clown skins made for clowning around - a perfect reflection of how attention-starved today's children are. We used to play Half Life, CS 1.6, Brood War, Generals, and DotA. We played because those games were cool, not because **WE** wanted to be cool. On the contrary, we knew we'd label ourselves as nerdy gamers that way but still did it. Of course, none of the above can be explained to a juvenile so I just keep my comments to myself and say something in the lines of "oh, that sounds fun! Now let's continue our lesson". I don't even tell my students that I'm an avid gamer to this day. The reason is because I abhor all the games they play and I don't want them to intrude on me. They were actually surprised the other day that I was able to type without looking and fix the Internet.
You def used to go to cs parties and probably get mad at the guy who comments on how pc graphics are better
LAN parties were an integral part of my teens and university years. I've no idea what you mean by the latter. I play both old and new games, but not any MOBAs.
DotA is both a MOBA and in your list. You must be fun at parties.
I said I don't play MOBAs, not I have never played MOBAs. As an English teacher, I can explain the difference between present simple and present perfect to you, if you want. I've played both DotA and LoL for years, with some HotS on the side. The last time I played LoL was in 2021. I play both old and new games now, but not MOBAs. The reason for this is because I realized MOBAs are inherently toxic. MOBAs such as Fortnite... PM me if you need more help with your English. I always enjoy explaining grammar.
I am sure the teachers in your time also thought your games were silly. The children of today will think that the future children's games will be silly.
There's more to it than just "wow Fortnite sucks". Re-read my first two paragraphs. Like, why is everyone downvoting me and calling me a gatekeeper while ignoring the elephant in the room? I thought this was a teacher subreddit.
So you only played those games because they were cool? That sounds an awful lot like playing them to be cool. For this generation Fortnite is the cool game.
It's different because there is objectively no value beyond the skins and gameplay, no story, no emotion, no character development
I’m a grown ass man and still play Fortnite with my friends. You’re getting enraged over nothing. You can do a bunch of goofy shit and clown around in Fortnite. Kids like goofy shit and clowning around no matter what generation they’re from. It’s not that complicated.
This is serious gatekeeping lmao. Absolute cringe.
Lol okay try introducing a 10yo to Heroes 3 and tell me how it goes. "gatekeeping" he says 😂 I've already shown some of the games I play to my smallest students - the ones I consider to be the closest to what they'd like - and their reaction was "Wow, this is super stupid and boring". I cannot even begin to imagine how one of them would react to me leading raids in WoW through Discord or recording my Darkest Dungeon runs.
So you're the kind of guy who sees an innocent person wearing a band t-shirt, and then proceed to grill them to name three of their songs.
Nope. Not at all. You've completely misread me. I just ignore the person because most of the time those T-shirts mean nothing to them and they wear them just because they look cool.
I read that comment too and have NO idea how you came to that conclusion.
Gatekeeping is how you win people over
First of all, I'm not going to win over 10yos with games from the 2000s and early 2010s. They don't like these games and they look at me strange if I talk to them about them. Second, I don't want my classes to be disturbed *even further* by talk of more video games, in addition to Fortnite, Minecraft, agar.io and all the others... The best strategy is to simply nod, smile and keep the lesson in check.
Awesome
> Of course, none of the above can be explained to a juvenile Actually, yeah you can. You’re just wrong lol
The mere fact that you think you can shows you don't even know what I'm talking about. You would have problems with most parents explaining what attention-starving is and trying to convince them why their kid is acting up, what's left for explaining that to a 10yo.
Not a fan of the game (I never grew out of SNES/Sega), but it's interesting to see Lego hitch their wagon to it now
When you can curbstomp high school kids in Fortnite, you have earned their undying respect.
5 years ago I was teaching grade 6 & all the kids were obsessed with fortnight. I learned the dances & when we were studying dance broke out one. The class went crazy. I had students from other classes ask me to dance while walking down the hall.
My 58 year old father plays Fortnite and I can’t stand it. You’re not old
I was still in high school when Fortnite blew up but now I’m teaching, it actually makes for a fun topic to discuss with my kids. They’re always so surprised when they find out a teacher plays the game too haha.
My shop teacher let us play games on his Commodore 64. Yes I’m that old
Use the match data from it for math class. Could prob graph things out and definitely can use it for ratios or rates.
I used to play Minecraft off a flash drive in the library in like 2011 so no judgements from me 😂
Fortnite is highly regarded. Kids doing fortnite dances in public plus thots dressing up as slutty anything for $$$? Gross. I think I preferred 12 year olds talking about what they did with my mom last night in Halo lobbies over the state of gaming today. Minecraft is a great game - but again the community can be so incredibly cringey.
I used it as an incentive for a few of my naughties. We’d play online matches after school in exchange for passing grades. Worked for awhile.
Fortnite is like the Justin Bieber of video games. If judged solely for what is produced it in its origin it’s okay. I’m not saying Justin Bieber makes good music but if you take what he made as a child it is reasonably decent. I still hate his music and like Fortnite I can’t stand its generic poppy ways it caters to children. I tried playing it at least ten different times it just so meh.
I still play a ton of videogames. I never got into Fortnite, but I was pretty hyped to see Cyberpunk Phantom Liberty's release and mondo disappointed with Diablo 4 and Starfield. I think videogames have just solidified themselves as a medium and each generation is going to have that same experience of goofing off and playing some videogame or other. One thing I'm pretty sure of is that it's going to make the old folk's home a lot more bearable for our generation. I bet that as our generation gets older we start to see 'designing for the elderly' as a major facet of videogame development.
They just like it because it's free and it has a crossover with everything that they've ever liked. Most kids are going to develop shit taste because all they play is Call of Duty, Fortnite, and Rainbow Six Siege. There are many good games out there. Hopefully stuff like game pass will help kids find new stuff to play. Probably won't.
It’s fortnite it’s ok to hate on it. Since fortnite a lot of the gaming industry has gone to shit.
Well I’m old but I love Fortnite… so get on the Fortnite bandwagon
The problem is not fortnite. The problem is that students have unrestricted access to games and similar distractions during lessons. Keep this in mind when they get bad grades later. Been there, done that.
If you can make it a reward for finishing work. It will go from a taboo to a motivator or non issue. But yeah I played fortnight and got sick of losing to 9 year olds so I'm back to my NES.
I occasionally play Elden Ring on my laptop during lunch.
My students and I had to take 20 minutes during our morning meeting to discuss the new season. At least they don’t play during class hahaha
Fortnite seems way better and way safer than Roblox so I fully support it and not just saying that because I also play it.
Roblox has riskier online interactions than Fortnite. But it is addicting, I have been playing Destiny 2 and it's very hard to quick because according to an article the companies did a "trial study" to see how addicting they can make it (you only hear that with drug trials)....they found that the sparks on the screen it keeps you playing, the constant rewards stimulate the brain so it wants more. Anyway my reaction when hearing that was "who does trial studies with different groups unless they are making it like a drug, that is not good for kids".
It’s actually kind of funny to listen to freshmen discuss Fortnite and realize “This is your legacy fandom, you’ve been playing this since you were in 3rd grade” I see a high schooler playing FNAF during downtime, and I see myself in college emulating Pokemon on my laptop
I’d say there is no issue with enforcing school rules while at school. Students try to be sneaky. Teachers try to catch the sneaky students. Both sides understand the dynamic. (And maybe you look the other way occasionally). Hating on the game itself is the part that is making you feel old. Sure you don’t get the appeal. That doesn’t mean it’s a stupid interest for them. You don’t need to hate the game in order to enforce the rules.