Colliding Scarcity with Ubiquity: The Fortnite Blackhole.

It’s no big insight to remark that Gen Z have grown up with an abundance of access and information: always on news, social media, commerce, etc – everything on tap at their fingertips.

But it does explain why flipping this on its head – as Fortnite did last month - was such powerful marketing. For those still not following gaming culture, Fortnite transformed a moment of required server upgrade/ downtime into a 2 day marathon of uncertainty, hand-wringing, a social-media bonanza. What was happening to our beloved game? Was Fortnite gone?

The most accessible and popular game ever – playable at every moment, on every device, without requiring any payment to play and win – suddenly zags and goes totally dark. Nearly 2 days of nothingness. (with little but a teasing video to fill the gap).

Fortnite took the classic deprivation strategy (most famous from Goodby’s epic original “Got Milk?” ad campaign, among others)  and applied  it in a very literal way to their experience – an experience which is as much a place for friends to gather as it is a game.

For millions of players, this moments of scarcity was unheard of. A first. And only reinforced how much they wanted, needed Fortnite as part of the social fabric of their lives.

Read more here.