To make their children less embarrassing, parents are paying for them to take Fortnite lessons

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What did you do when little Timmy sucked at baseball? You paid for lessons and tutors and camps, because God knows, you can’t have your scrub child representing your family name on the field and playing like garbage. And you know the kids in the dugout and the other parents on those scalding hot bleachers are talking all the shit about your kid, simply because he missed a super easy ground ball. Seriously, Timmy, get it together.

Now, however, the shit talking might not be about ground balls, but instead missing that easy headshot in the world’s most popular video game. That’s right, parents are apparently invested in their children’s Fortnite win percentage and now signing up their kids for lessons. I don’t understand it either.

Reported by The Wall Street Journal, one parent was quoted as saying, “There’s pressure not to just play it but to be really good at it. You can imagine what that was like for him at school.” I get it, for sure, I refuse to speak to anyone with less than 15 total wins, and I’m grown, so kids probably have really high guidelines for Fortnite acceptance.

The child of that parent hopes his friends won’t find out about his training, saying,

They’ll probably think I’m cheating or something. That’s how 10-year-old kids work.

You kind of screwed that up by talking with the WSJ, kid, but don’t worry, I won’t rat you out.

I’m getting sidetracked. The point here is that parents are paying real money so their children are better at video games. Lesson prices vary, but $10-20 a lesson is definitely not unheard of. Gamer Sensei and Bidvine both offer coaches, and I’m sure there are other avenues available.

To clarify, people are spending real money on video game lessons for a game that will probably have almost no relevance in another year. Sure, some of the lessons may stick when the kid pivots to Halo 8 or GTA XII, but those in-depth build strats will have no relevance past this one, singular battle royal game.

On one hand, I think this is really great; on the other, I hate everyone.

What do you think? Will this trend continue to grow or is it a fad?

For more gaming and tech news, check out:

• Review: Roccat Horde AIMO Membranical RGB gaming keyboard
• Fortnite’s 5.10 content update brings back the frustratingly explosive guided missile
• The Fortnite World Cup starts in 2019 and Epic Games has $100 million ready for prize pools

Josiah Motley

Former KnowTechie editor.