I found the ok and youre in the street and im really could be alive today is for tonight more than just a video game we have diving into one of the biggest cultural phenomena in gaming so share your thoughts in our live chat or you can tweet us at a. J. Stream need to be in this to. The free to play online video game thought is a cultural juggernaut not only is it influencing pop culture but pop culture is influencing fortnight the game boasts more registered players than the populations of canada and mexico combined it also generates roughly 250000000. 00 in revenue each month for its creator epic games but for many of the 200000000. 00 people who play it fortnight isnt just a game its a communal Gathering Place joining us to talk about this from los angeles we have jamie in the war and hes an avid gamer and founder of 256 a company that works with brands to engage with the world of play and interactivity in new york i should have done is a journalist who regularly reports on the gaming world in Charlotte North Carolina author psychologist and cofounder of tank gaskill good to have you as we also want to introduce you to one other person you will see throughout the show how they get rashid is a digital producer here with the stream and an avid fortnight gamer hell be playing the game during our discussions and youll be out to follow along and hes fortnight jenny is at the bottom of the screen all the way through so if you get killed early we will know no pressure up all rights record. I have never paid for it so were going to play with you what do we need lets jump right into it so here we are in the lobby screen as you can see this is where right before you jump into the game ok so real quick im going to my locker when you happen to me im going to have you choose my outfit all right im going to go through. This guy yet ok so me and monique im going to have you back bling. Bling yes i want we want you to fly so now im back in the lobby and im ready to go fire up and triangle and im jumping in again can you play in talk course i can play all right plain talk of course so will the loading screen takes a couple seconds and ill be probably in again probably a minute or 2 well were watching you at the bottom of the screen. So i mean we know that we have a lot of gamers in our community but this is one person who is not as and so i want to start this conversation with them this is christopher who says i heard a lot about this game for tonight and was curious to see if it was worth all the hype after trying it for a month i decided it wasnt for me love the look but spending 20 plus minutes wandering a giant World Without seeing a soul d to just get taken out from behind is not my idea of fun so james and i you know when i see you laughing in there i want to give a little teaser for our audience because mohammad before the show described the game as our version of the hunger games youve seen the movies or you read the books describe for us based on this tweet from christopher what it is that youre actually doing in this game yeah games its actually agree and now. As a culture were familiar with the Battle Royale jon the kind of winner takes all format that exists in a lot of different places so you have things like dodgeball march madness for basketball so i think culturally we understand what it means to be the last person standing which will be unique about. Illusionary about fortnight is safe throws 100. 00 people into an environment that they all share and the last person to be standing wins theres a big ring that sits outside the world that kind of pushes people into a more and more compressed space but for you know the fellow who is feeling a little down about being lost by themselves they may want to consider playing with other people you can actually play as duos you can play with a squad so at least if its if its not as you getting taken out its the rest of your crew so its a really innovative format a really interesting twist on a very popular gaming style from the 1st time you played fortnight. What were you thinking he single for the actual goal was trying to do for you as a player. Well ill tell you the 1st time i played it is the same experience and i was in there for 20 minutes i didnt know what i was doing even though im a dreamer and i just decided to give up and just play on my phone which which is interesting about this game is crossplatform you can do play station x. Box you name it but my claim to fame is after playing it for about a month i actually got a solo when i actually won the game on my phone which gives me a lot of street cred with some of the clients that i see but it also in playing this game with my son and Getting Better at it it was just very bonding experience it was very funny when this broke i started i could hear the theme music it made me feel like coast actually walking into my house going to hearing my 2 kids playing and it was very familiar i like that i because its the family area that people online are saying is what draws them to it because its the thing that they come back to again and again so this is gene park and he says some of the appeal its free which is a big factor its on every modern platform it being on phones was a big in a bowler and frank you just mentioned how you played on your phone jean on twitter says it enables crossplatform play the way part that way progress is always ensured no matter where you are i shall want to bring you in here with this tweet is this different then the way other video games are played the fact that you can play it on any platform what may great but oh well so cross pop 5 as who dont know it basically means that no matter what pop from your on whether thats a p. S. For on mobile or a p. C. You can play with other people i would say fortnight is actually a big game that really brought this to the mainstream and sony actually caved into pressure at the end of last year to enable cost play largely because my parents were like look we want to play with our friends let us play with them on p. S. Foreign stuff and as previously mentioned its free to play so that combined with the fact that its crossplatform means that the barrier to entry was significantly lowered. I just think you dont have to that is when march madness was mentioned. Whats happening culturally over the id say the last decade or more is at least in the us and probably worldwide we dont have common experiences so when i was going to date myself but when i was growing up i was watching the love boat dukes of hazard and we go to school and we talk about particular Football Games because we had a limited choice in terms of what we could entertain ourselves with this is that experience all these kids young adults adults we have the shared experience now so we can go into school or go into the workplace and talk about the time we spent together and this is just one of those rare platforms where you can actually do that to me having seen all the people around the well proven scam and i havent had that little song experiences in different parts of the walls. But the really important point about the game being able to play be played on multiple devices is that every country is a little bit different and you know access to high Speed Internet is different in every Country Access to you know p. C. Gaming rig for example which might be on the more expensive i had your multiple on which everybody has games like for tonight really flatten the experience for everyone around the world it is going to try it out and bought having a piece now on be a part of the conversation if you want to play it with other people right if you look at other forms of viral meet. A beauty or a point to read ever it might be a take on dont democrats running trouble connecting are here to talk about different kinds of connectivity in different parts that well we will. In the meantime frank what is happening in your brohm a problem for tonight one of what happens psychologically. Well as gaming you have lots of different kinds of players and im going to be judged severely by all your social media and the audience but i tend to be a camper which is somebody who plays but plays cautious and thats actually how i got my solo in this i got it push you can actually do this if you put it you know wandered around the other 20 minutes frank would so you get in the bush for 20 minutes i mean you won the game well i had to creep along because you have to stay within the eye of the storm and there was one other guy left and he was shooting bushes to try and 5 me and i managed to kill him and what so thats a very cheap way to win but thats what i love about playing with especially my son is hes a leader and he tells you where to go where to be if its a game that can teach leadership ship skills problem solving and its its really an impressive platform so when youre talking about the leadership skills i want to go to 100. 00 now because id like to know who it is that you play with we know that its 100 player game in the world gets smaller and smaller who are you playing with right now so right now i mean the soul the most some all alone in this huge humongous world and to numberous myself im kind of doing with what the guest is that im not camping but i did land for i didnt i didnt go find smoke purposely to fight so right here i just finished loading i have 4 still ive picked up a bunch of merit some ready for any battle coming my way but usually when i do play i dont i dont like playing alone i have a huge group of friends that i play with we call it we call it we call whats our group game boys and whenever someone wants to get on we dismiss its a group whos on guys and we jump on the game and we play together and that communal that Community Feeling is really felt because one of my friends for example of the malaysia the other lives in doha some live in the west coast some live in chicago so its a great place to come together to speak and i play almost i dont want to say a daily basis to scene so its like that like i said exactly the same like that to hear. I pretty much put on a daily basis and i talk to these people almost every day so they become Close Friends and i even invited them to my wedding so yeah you know the outside oh here is the were so here heres the funny part and i kind of feel but i knew a majority of them in real life so i invited those ones to my wedding but that one theres a bunch of them why i havent met one so good friends with but i kind of felt weird inviting them to my wedding but i kind of i kind of wish i did that oh that is going to kill the you know i have no idea what it is. So i guess i did that and im going to let regroup there because you talked about friends and that communal feeling we got a video comment from a former member of the Stream Family a former producer and host here Latoya Peterson shes a gamer shes also on the board of advisors for that society and she talks about that community. Peterson from washington d. C. And fortnight has become a cultural phenomenon partly because it is fun to play and it was a free to play a huge multiplayer game and one of the key secrets to success is that it was fully customizable completely fix your character change your world around you had a mission but you also just hang out with your friends and so that makes for a really compelling experience compelling multiplayer experience and when more people Start Playing there are a lot of reasons to meet in the world scene we kind of people go to starbucks the 3rd place for. Gamers and gaming and so its overleaped other types of games like book my games its a game and he mentions its sort of like the new starbucks its a place to meet its a place to hang out when you think about. I mean i think thats true to a certain extent i mean the reality is that theres lots of things to do in fortnight so theyve had some virtual concerts theyre experimenting with this big concert with marshmallow that millions of people attended and theres other types of game mode so theres a guy minecraft like game mode inside a fortnight to build things i think you know at the end of the day its one of many places that people will go i think in the same way that starbucks is one of many different coffee shops sometimes you want this big kind of big coffee Shop Experience is that people want to go to like their local kind of like grocery but the overall trend line is true that videogames increasingly are becoming a place where many different types of people spend time together thats 100 percent accurate. My my a my son. Is his twitch handle is vader geek as in darth vader and he is trying to be ninja the guy that makes a ton of money playing this and hes very very good at it but i was i mean i tell him i was a little skeptical and this has been become his communities hes adding followers hes interacting with them and it its almost a game within a game a healthy way of kind of building a following and follow other people and i think its not only just a starbucks thing but theres theres this tie into Popular Culture where at least in the states weve got the n. F. L. So you could buy a skins which is sort of the customized ability of your Favorite Team and i guess maybe a year or so ago maybe longer when the Infinity Ward came out you could play as status which was ridiculous how quickly they they blend of those 2 franchises and how they can kind of tie into current pop culture stuff thats outside of the game is really impressive so frank just left in a sentence is that saying what to pull those who are new to that can shirt which is basically its not quite social media but its a way of following other people with similar interests and you can stream your games so i on my phone. How we get work and my phone will go off and it says my son is now streaming video and i can then click on that link and i can watch him play and i can talk to him i can interact with them is another way of be connected in a highly Digital World i see youve done Something Else calls for courts about now heres one of them for night reading is taking over everything in 2019 so you can study in what is. What its blowing up and has blown up in the past yeah can you put your finger on it thought audience because if you want to miss it seem to have a play youll seeing a play again with outgassing scenes and your pal ted what. Will so great. Right so i think james and frank actually touched on a few of these things one of it is theres such a huge intersection of Popular Culture like the marshmallow sponsor you know drake played that its become so mainstream that theres more to connect with as opposed to this traditional Gaming Experience where you have to be this really experienced gamer to sort of get anywhere you can be casual drop in and out and still see all these cultural references that you can talk to your friend about i think thats definitely one of the big things and you know latoya and her question earlier she talked about how for and it was so customizable and i think theres a really big parallel between not just you know a fortnight and a starbucks but fortnight and social media its free to play but all these players buy skins you know outfits emote which are like thats what you can do and theyre almost like status symbols so its like a going to instagram and posting your you know coolest you know outfit thats a similar appeal to fortnight i think its a way to show like oh youre doing this or their friends are in with the latest skin or the latest weapon just kind of go off to agree with both or i guess this game really capitalized and learn how to work off the hype so what they do is there are seasons for example in about every 2 months or so theres a new season with new season comes a new version of the game a new updates and new guns and they really have people on their toes with the new things and every week they bring the drop something new they drop a new game on or they jump like they said in skins so that really also played into the big factor of why for names so theres so much hype around the game and people keep coming back to it because they learned how to make sure theyre not boring to keep bringing in new things one that i love in the conversation but i dont want you to die so i need to be there because what we are but i dont want you to die again weve got a comment on you tube right now from me who says ive played fortnight both mohamed plenty of times and hes never left a man behind. The force one apart from his well. Well here and there is this is a friend though was invited to the with so i want to actually bring up another you to comment we got this is from dolly and she says do you think this online game is toxic to female gamers and streaming and i should because youre covering this whats your take on that question right so gaming has a history of not being very friendly to female gamers you know sometimes theyre theyre marginalized players in the game and there have been history theres been a history of female players being harassed right there was this phenomenon called game or gate where female gamers were just being really violently spread and online so far that hasnt materialized so badly in fortnight there have been sort of cases every now and then of Young Players being you know scanned on maybe there are some unruly behavior im worried that maybe further down the lifespan of the scam that might happen but right now fortnight is built you know for young people its simpler goofy its its super fun that i dont think it says prevalent a problem yet but thats completely different id say to maybe the gaming industry at large which still has a long way to go in terms of diversity accessibility and being friendly to all genders of gamers. You know i read a little bit is 1st of all see how to dalia shes one of my twitter followers. You know glad she could you know but. The thing thats fascinating to me and i dont know if to say this could be a cultural shift did least in the states around gender because when i would play games soon the ninetys that it was soul calibur and women were very objectified. And when you play the game you typically like i my god plays ago it for girls play she plays girl but in this game gender seems very nebulous and my son will play as somebody whos clearly a woman or a guy somebody is a guy and thats not really ever discussed they seem more or interested in the style of the character in the skin but it i dont know if this is sort of the shift in gaming. That is are actually really positive. Like for me for example i have a bunch of skins because unfortunately ive spent to once i won this game but my coolest skins are the female characters in my opinion thats why i usually play with both amy me and you may need to. My bad luck which is my bad luck skin but its ok im trying to find our so i mentioned the positives and so then i hate to follow that up but the negative but we got a video comment thats pretty interesting and this is from nate that grayson hes a reporter at the taco in l. A. And he talks about the potential ethical dilemmas that we could run into with court and have a listen well one of his players a place to hang out and have fun its all a game based on passion split sport from the horror right now were going to put in more wins less military professions based on the bowery games but it remains a label some place free version of that was it slightly unnerving but not entirely unsurprising the most popular game among its not ruthlessly competitive hyper taboo society tells players to see everybody else not some sort of broad system as an enemy and a struggle that can have only one. So damon its based on a fascist bloodsport from a whore her novel i would do to nathan well i mean i think like a fair reading and criticism of the game i guess i would argue that you know thats a criticism that could be lead to lead against any kind of winner take all environments games are very good at setting up there are lots of games that feature you know you were to everybody else so i mean i think there is a good argument to be made that you know fetishizing just like winning at all costs is probably not a good thing but again i dont think that this is unique to fortnight i mentioned some other you know other things earlier dodgeball for example has no winner take all environment king of the hill there are lots of these type environment and games so i think its a really interesting read on it but whether or not players are actively making that connection i would argue probably not the case i said that i would 1st add to that theres ive got a lot of articles on shrimp tank about video games and violence and the research is pretty clear and the reason why i just tried it this way is i have parents. Of of clients that say well im not going to let my kids play for i cause its bio and what i say to them is some of the games that cause kids to be the most aggressive or dangerous are driving games Football Games hockey because theyve done that theyve been in a car theyve played a game so it fits in their head. Kids have never been on a floating bus landing on an island wearing these clothes its kids ability to separate themselves star wars doesnt make you buy it and i think its the ability to kind of see this is your team rather than this earlier where you want to rip their brains why should that happen a couple of control surrounding fortnight and this is a couple of them where the audience and you can address them. Back pack heat doing the floss here we go. Very nice and have to mention the cult of dance here we go we have the cult and dance as well explain why these 2 we cant control the scenes in the fortnight well its right so but kid who is doing the floss dogs on the carlton dance these are accessible and the game as you note which are basically animations that your that your character can do and of those 2 people by package whose name is Russell Horning and Alfonso Ribeiro is carlton the fresh prince of belair as well as the rapper to milly theyve all sued fortnights developer at big games for basically stealing what they allege a feeling theyre dancing with and even more interesting is in the very 1st of those lawsuits 2000000 said that fortnight is explicitly appropriating the work of people of color a lot of you know eye for an africanamerican artist so this is start of this whole debate this legal debate about can you copyright a document. And then theres another debate which is like how are video games appropriating the culture of people of color so thats been a huge dialogue people like chance the rapper have chimed in like its really something that i think is present in the mind of people watching and playing for a minute. For me it gives you an example of how big the game is that these conversations that were having in the real world now being started off by a video game absolutely im going to wrap up with. The community to see what shes up to now im hearing about these 2 comments here from you tube one person pretty positively says i played many games in my life and work night has to be the most active game ive ever come across constant updates and seasons keeps people bringing people back what someone else wants us to know and hes not alone there or tonight is old news apacs is the new top dog you guys are hot behind so thats the next game will have to do a show and just own time in the hand if youre dead right now right here and right hand you are dead to us thank you so much for joining us thank you to the guests see you next time were always online take care of your body. Leak stories generate fountains of headlines these protests are saying down with the system and down with all of the parts with different angles from different perspectives just because we came to prison doesnt mean rights stopped at the gate separate the spin from the facts the western media jumps on stories without taking down the misinformation from the journalism its about telling the stories of those human beings on the ground with the listening post on aljazeera. Our planet is warming as never before with profound consequences for all life on earth but the worlds leading Scientists Say there is still time to act planet s. O. F. Sets out the facts and the Science Behind the issues affecting our panicked and brings you what people across the globe a doing to touch on the crisis around planets s. O. S. On aljazeera. For centuries it was the remoteness of brazils indigenous communities the protected them from the rapacious outside world now its what shields those who are encroaching on protected Indigenous Territory starting fires and threatening the residents of the county when i had the 1st contact with the outside walls in 1978 and what are you. Talking her native language translated for us into portuguese remembers it well she says they brought diseases that decimated her community but that me a couple years we had a lot of land and we lived peacefully really with fear that are very few of us the invaders are coming closer its difficult at 1st to gauge why a place so remote so tranquil should not so so munch to the rest of the walls Indigenous People who live here always realized that now is the smoke those are the skies and the ash is pollute the river the rest of the world is beginning to realize it too. The taliban wants to make a deal well see if they want to make a deal its going to be a real deal but well see. A resumption of talks with the taliban as president makes a surprise thanksgiving visit to u. S. Troops in afghanistan. Im Richelle Carey this is al jazeera live from doha also coming up today on approves a law to completely dismantle any trace of former president Omar Al Bashir as regime. Chaos in Iraq Security forces opened fire on