1) Barely ahead of PUBG in unique players despite being free to play and PUBG costing $30
2) Shameless clone of PUBG
The cultural phenomenon is PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds, and Fornite is riding on the hype by being free to play.
I agree PUBG implementation is terrible, but nonetheless the credit is due where it's due. Brendan Greene started it, and PUBG trails Fornite only slightly despite costing $30.
That was a big risk compared to PUBG's conservative and incremental iteration on the existing genre.
Though these Fortnite vs PUBG arguments sure sound like the Xbox vs PS3 forum debates back in the day... I was always thankful that I didn't encounter them on HN.
That being said, both the games you reference, their Battle Royale mode was actually made by the creator of PUBG:
> Brendan Greene, also known as PLAYERUNKNOWN, is the creator of the Battle Royale mod that started in the DayZ mod for Arma 2. Recently, Battle Royale has been licensed by SOE and made an official game mode in H1Z1
Which itself is often called a clone of H1Z1. Which in turn was inspired by DayZ..
That being said, both the games you reference, their Battle Royale mode was actually made by the creator of PUBG:
> Brendan Greene, also known as PLAYERUNKNOWN, is the creator of the Battle Royale mod that started in the DayZ mod for Arma 2. Recently, Battle Royale has been licensed by SOE and made an official game mode in H1Z1
Source: https://www.pcgamer.com/battle-royale-modder-brendan-greene-...
So your reference to those actually support my point.
They all were inspired by the movie Battle Royale, but that was a movie, not a game. If movie <-> games were indicators of mutual success that would be a first.
Grandparent was suggesting that PUBG copied off of H1N1/DayZ, justifying Fortnite copying PUBG. While sony cloned PUBG, they licensed it, whereas Fornite didn't. But they were not originally Battle Royale games and the Battle Royale modes came from the creator of PUBG.
> They are referring to the BR modes in those games, and they are effectively clones and inspired by the movie Battle Royal.
I don't get what you're saying here. I mentioned the movie Battle Royale, not them. And predecessor games' battle royale modes grandparent suggested PUBG cloned from were made by the PUBG creator. I'm not sure what I said really counts as "pedantic" so much as the grandparent completely misrepresenting facts.