Minecraft crafts its way to the top
After school, engineering students play Minecraft in the MakerSpace.
October 31, 2019
Fortnite, the popular battle royale game, took the world by storm in 2018. It ruled the entire gaming scene with over 250 million registered players worldwide.
There were many competitive tournaments for the game, as well as massive amounts of viewers through Twitch, a popular streaming service for gaming. Certain Twitch streamers like Tfue and Ninja boosted Fortnite’s popularity by playing the game at a pro-level, gaining a massive online following.
It seemed that Fortnite was going to be the top dog for years to come until another game began to rise with the help of a certain individual.
Pewdiepie, the hit YouTube celebrity, started his own Minecraft series as a meme. Little did he know that the game had been receiving constant updates over the years and many people were not aware of the changes. The publicity the game received from his series boosted the game’s popularity. With the stale gameplay of Fortnite and many Twitch streamers voicing their bad experiences with the game, Minecraft’s Twitch viewership drastically rose.
“Fortnite basically ruined itself. They added too many new weapons and vehicles that made the game unbalanced,” said Aidan Horgan ’20.
Minecraft was in the spotlight again and became the first game to beat Fortnite in viewership in months. Minecraft’s popularity kept rising with the thousands of memes and Keemstar’s “Minecraft Monday” event, a Minecraft tournament where all of the participants are YouTube celebrities. All of the attention Minecraft received basically pushed Minecraft so far past Fortnite in popularity that it left Fortnite in the dust.
“Everything has its time in the sun,” said Chris Fern, RCade Club moderator. “The fact that Minecraft is popular again means that it’s possible that Fortnite may return to its golden days.”