It's no secret that a large portion of Fornite's current demographic is children. From the game's successful venture into the world of toys and merchandise to studies showing its popularity with younger audiences, the incredibly popular battle royale sensation clearly has a lot of responsibility on its shoulder when taking into account how many kids tune into play every single day. In the eyes of many parents, Epic Games has not taken that responsibility seriously enough, with many citing Fortnite as being an addictive and unhealthy influence on their children.
Yet, if a new datamine is to be believed, it seems Fortnite might be looking into ways to address this problem. Posted to Twitter by user "FireMonkey," it seems as though digging into the game's recent update has revealed a new countermeasure that prevents users from playing for extended amounts of time.
Although FireMoney admits that they're not sure whether the option is turned on by supposed parent controls, the leaker has compiled a number of warning messages discovered within the game. These seem to indicate that, after playing for approximately three hours, the player's in-game gainings will be reduced by 50% and their challenge progress will be completely halted. This will supposedly last for five hours, with the goal being for users to "log-off and get some rest," while also reinforcing that "appropriate physical exercise is good for your body." The complete list of warning messages can be found below:
FireMonkey does also reveal that this new feature seems to only be currently coming to Chinese players, with the options being enforced by Tencent, the company that heavily manages Fortnite in China. Regardless, it seems the decision comes after a number of recent accusations levied at the game about its addictive qualities. A recent court case claimed the game was as addictive as cocaine, while a child was sent to rehab to deal with their addiction to Fortnite back in late 2018.
Although the new system will only seemingly be enforced in China for the time being, it's not too much of a stretch to imagine that the new concept could eventually make its way to the West. After all, gaming addiction has become a much more serious affliction over the last few years, with it officially being labeled a medical condition and receiving a clinic last year in the UK.
Fortnite is available for free on Mobile, PC, PS4, Switch, and Xbox One.
