Fortnite Is Trying To Rob Your Grandmother

Thanks to the partnership between Epic Games and Warner Bros Interactive, Fortnite will be getting a physical release on November 16th for $29.99 on the Nintendo Switch, Sony PlayStation 4, and the Microsoft Xbox One. That's right, Fortnite: the hit game that's already absolutely free to download. This package that's being released is called the Deep Freeze Bundle, and will include a series of winter themed premium items, as well as 1000 V-Bucks, the in-game currency of Fortnite. If you're wondering who this package is supposed to appeal to, I can guarantee that it's not for fans of the game, but instead their loved ones.

With the holiday season fast approaching, and as parents become desperate to find something that proves they pay attention to their children, a physical copy of Fortnite will be hitting the shelves. Instead of just offering a physical version of the game though, this is the Deep Freeze Bundle, which immediately brings to mind thoughts of the ephemeral Winter season, soon to melt away like so much blackened slush by the side of the road. Epic Games and Warner Bros Interactive know that they don't even need to put the words 'limited edition' on the box, since the very idea that it's a Winter pack brings to mind the notion that it's not going to last forever, which makes the impulse to buy it even stronger.

This isn’t the first time that Fortnite has had a chance to be released in physical form, and for collectors this is a good chance to get a copy of the game that isn’t overpriced on eBay, but if this was just a simple reprint of the game, then it’s doubtful that Epic Games and Warner Bros Interactive would have made a winter edition of the game. More than likely, this will merely spawn more needless bundles and packages for the future. For many, a future with only digital releases is a bleak one, but even that’s exploitable, as Fortnite gets released over and over in the future, each time with a different gimmick, to exploit the most thorough of collectors and those who don’t know enough to realize that the copy they’re buying is needless fluff.

It's impossible to deny the success of Fortnite, as the company that made it, Epic Games, is now estimated to be worth billions of dollars, but there's a particularly unscrupulous aura to the actions of a company that packages their free to download game in a $30 box and slaps it on store shelves right before the holidays. It's not the fans of Fortnite who are going to spend money on this, it's the poor grandparents who've lost the connection they had with their grandchildren, and only know that “they like that Fortnite.” when if they took the time to speak with their progeny, they'd know that the $30 could be spent on something else.

~Craig_WK