Community complaints about blockbuster live service video games fall under a few predictable buckets. Maybe the microtransactions seem excessive or overpriced. Perhaps people feel that a game doesn't update enough. Players might be invested in the evolving meta of a game they enjoy every day, leading them to criticize the direction of the game. It's unusual, then, that Epic Games has found itself with a totally different problem regarding Fortnite – fans are constantly irate over the item shop and the inability to spend more money.
Fortnite's item shop is a robust beast that dwarfs most item shops in the entire industry. Every day, the shop updates at the same time with a new slate of goods, like skins and emotes. Like most games, Fortnite also has events and weekly challenges, which encourage players to log in regularly. Skins in particular might pop up in the item shop for a short period of time, only to be completely unavailable for purchase for over a year: if you missed it, you missed it. Anxiety over missing out is baked into Fortnite's bones, which is why social media accounts and websites theme themselves entirely around what's for sale that day. It's like Xur in Destiny, except way more intense.
This Pavlovian urge is hardly unique to me, judging by the chatter on social media any time the shop happens to slow down. A couple of weeks ago, one thread on Reddit titled "Since we haven't got good item shops in a while, which single skin do you really want?" got over three thousand upvotes from people listing dozens of different items they were pining over. This is but one example of many. "Anyone else getting sick of waiting 24 hours for the item shop to change to nothing new," asks another popular thread posted a few days ago. The topic is so pervasive that in one thread, a user suggested that mods create a sticky topic that could contain the seemingly daily discussions about the state of the item shop.
Window shopper
Typically, the shop shows off a wide variety of wares – but every so often, it'll only swap in a few things. Specific segments, especially ones dedicated to real-world brands that have lent their IP to Epic Games, tend to stick around for longer. "When is Lady Gaga ever going to leave the item shop?" reads another moderately bustling thread. In general, diehard fans have strong opinions about how well the shop rotates through Fortnite's enormous suite of items, at times suggesting ways that Epic can improve the UI. It's not that the UI is terrible: it's that people want a more robust selection of things to buy.
The people making Fortnite are only human, however, so the shop isn't always the digital equivalent of the Mall of America. Recently, for example, Fortnite has been gearing up to release a new season that will be live by the time you read this. Typically a new season transforms the entire game, complete with new points of interest, mechanics that could sustain their own games, and a lengthy battle pass. Lately, and coincidentally, the shop hasn't been quite as diverse. My assumption is that a few outfits aren't the priority for the developer when it's putting the finishing touches on a massive content update, and that's doubly true when said content is having server issues.
Yet if we're being realistic, during these slower periods, Fortnite is still likely rotating in more new things than most AAA games. To wit, one player who kept tabs on what the shop put out noted that last season saw the "highest number of new item shop skins" compared to other recent seasons. Despite this, the same thread still declared that the item shop selection overall was "bad." Some of this displeasure has to do with what the skins actually are – just because it's new doesn't mean it's good. Lego versions of some skins, for example, often fail to capture elements that make the full skin compelling in the first place.
People also have strong opinions about skins, particularly when it comes to meme ones, or characters that are a near-constant, like Peely. Still, when you consider that you can only wear one skin at a time during a game, what we're looking at is frustration that people can't expand their digital toybox. I say this as someone who is also cursed with an obsession with the item shop, to the degree that I'll load the game up every day regardless of whether or not I'm getting in a match. What if there's something really cool in there, I'll say, knowing that I don't even use 80% of what I buy.
"I remember when the BR first launched and if you saw anyone who wasn't wearing a default skin, you'd kind of think they were tryhards"
But if that's the case, why so much uproar over the inability to spend money on items that aren't even real? While there are likely many things at play here, one of the most obvious culprits is peer pressure. Fortnite is a hugely social game, and it's fun to show off your fashion sense when you cobble a variety of items together. Epic also puts a lot of effort into making the cosmetics unique and eye-catching. Some emotes will let a buddy join in, even if they don't own it – so you can do a handshake, pretend to play in a band, or jump into a chess match. Skins are reactive, and can sometimes change depending on how many kills you get. Some emotes even let you pull out entire vehicles that you can ride for a few moments. I'm constantly astounded at what Fortnite comes up with, which makes the pre-game lobby a joy to experience. Even after hundreds of hours, I'm still constantly seeing things that wow me and inevitably spark envy.
"I remember when the BR first launched and if you saw anyone who wasn't wearing a default skin, you'd kind of think they were tryhards (aka a sweat) and they even got kind of targeted specifically," wrote one Redditor, ConcernedYellingMan, on a thread that asked fans why they care so deeply about the item shop. The user went on to point out that many younger players have grown up in an era where microtransactions are normalized, whereas older players remember a time before TF2 hats.
But now? Kids straight up get bullied by their peers (I once wrote about this very subject for Polygon) if they're not keeping up appearances in Fortnite. Default skins are vastly outnumbered by glossier and more sophisticated characters. "It's changed a lot," the same Redditor wrote.
Totally new to Fortnite? Check out our how to play Fortnite guide for absolute beginners
