So, everyone kind of lost their minds for a few days when Fortnite had its infamous “black hole” moment. Then, there was a collective sigh of release around the globe when Fortnite Chapter 2 went live. The panic was short-lived, of course, and was something of a marketing ploy by Epic Games.
People are now appraising the new updated game, and it seems the Fortnite phenomenon will roll on for a few years yet, much to the chagrin of parents around the world no doubt. But will it be popular 10 years from now? Doubtless, it will be replaced by some shiny new game.
Indeed, despite Fortnite’s claim of being the world’s most popular video game, it has a long way to go to have the longevity of these classics. These four games we love and they will never go out of fashion:
Pac-Man
For many of us, Pac-Man is a big bulky machine that sat proudly in arcades in the 1980s. For others it is the curse of the global economy. Let us explain: Back in 2010 when Google released Pac-Man Doodle, a free to play game to celebrate the anniversary of the original, it was estimated to have caused the loss of around 500 million hours of productivity, costing global business around $100 million. Next year, Pac-Man turns 40, and you can bet that there will be plenty more office hours lost due to employees guiding a yellow disc chomping round a maze. Now, ask yourself if people will be playing Fortnite in the year 2057?
Tetris
Another one which capitalized on the video game console and arcade boom of the 1980s, Tetris was famously designed in the Soviet Union in 1984. The history of the game’s evolution is fascinating, especially against the backdrop of the Cold War. The cold hard numbers don’t like, however, as Tetris is estimated to have sold over 170 million physical copies. Like Pac-Man above, the game moved seamlessly online and on to free mobile apps, where 100s of millions of versions of the game have been downloaded. Amazing when you consider it’s all about lining up falling blocks.
Blackjack
The casino game that vies with roulette for supremacy among gamblers around the world. It’s hard to discern which of the two is more iconic as a casino game, but our preference is for blackjack as it requires more skill. We tried it at Casino.com, and found that there are lots of different variants of the game, and thus lots of ways to keep it fresh. The classic version, with Vegas Strip rules, has a very low house edge, and should be considered one of the ultimate battles of wits in casino games.
Solitaire
There were those of us who wasted early childhoods in the arcades of the 1980s, and some of us didn’t have our brains completely melted by Pac-Man and Asteroids and went on to college in the 1990s. The only problem was that those shiny new PCs that we used for our studies and assignments came loaded with Microsoft Solitaire. Internet was slow back then, so choices were limited, and Solitaire was king. Microsoft has claimed Solitaire is one of the most played games on any Microsoft OS in history, and there are estimates that the game has over 50 million plays daily.
Check out our other article on horror flash games.