Fortnite has been growing explosively in popularity over the last couple of years. As Epic continues to grow in influence within the wider games industry, there’s going to be a growing need to keep an eye on what the company is doing. There’s any number of reasons one could want to do this. For example, protecting consumers against unwanted changes is one good reason. Another is that players will want to ensure that they’re getting their moneys worth and that Epic is actually listening to their feedback. EVE Online does something somewhat similar to this, although this effort for the battle royale title seems a bit more sketchy. The Council of Stellar Management (or CSM) is the player-elected group of representatives that interact direcly with CCP multiple times per year to communicate feedback to players.
The Fortnite Professional Players Association (or FNPPA) is a newly formed player and consumer advocacy group specifically for Fortnite gamers. According to the newly formed Twitter account for the group, multiple professional gamers and related groups have signed on to support the effort. This is where the first potential stumbling blocks are uncovered. According to the group it was formed “so that [it] may reflect the voice of the entire professional community.” Problem is, no players are involved with this as a whole. These groups were not elected by the wider playerbase. And it only gets harder to take this seriously when some of the players on the listed groups are under the age of legal consent. All together it does raise some questions about how effective such an advocacy group can be.
At least they have a decent spread geographically, of the 16 members, eight are from the North American region, and the other eight are from Europe. Who knows, maybe this will have a positive impact and help out the struggling perception surrounding Epic Games, only time will tell.
Epic has been making other inroads to fixing their reputation though, while also keeping players of their flagship game happy, like including live events as a regular feature. And with consistent content updates and patches, the game just keeps improving. With Season X ongoing, Epic only has up to go from here, and based on previous success, they look like they’re in a secure spot financially.